China’s ambassador to London has compared Japanese right wingers to Voldemort, the villain of the Harry Potter novels, and called on Britain to side with China in opposing attempts to “reinterpret history”.

Liu Xiaoming said that the visit by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to the Yasukuni war shrine last week, “has raised the spectre of militarism rising again in Japan.” In the sternest reaction so far to the visit, he says that nationalists in Japan” pose a serious threat to global peace” and “raise the threat of war”.

“In the Harry Potter story, the dark wizard Voldemort dies because the seven horcruxes, which contain parts of his soul, have been destroyed,” said Mr Liu, revealing a deep knowledge of J K Rowling’s saga of