Chris Philp refused to distance himself from Johnson’s false claim and far-right smear that Starmer had failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile while he was director of public prosecutions.

Boris Johnson’s disinformation minister, who has previously called on social media companies to tackle fake news, has refused to call out the prime minister’s own disinformation when presented with the evidence.

Chris Philp, minister for technology and the digital economy, refused to distance himself from Johnson’s false claim and far-right smear that Starmer had failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile while he was director of public prosecutions.

Johnson made the baseless claim while giving a statement to the Commons earlier this week on Sue Gray’s damning update into illegal Downing Street parties. The fake claim has also been condemned by some of Johnson’s own MPs who have called on him to withdraw it, including former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith.

Meanwhile Philp, was asked during a session of the Digital Culture, Media and Sport Committee by SNP MP John Nicolson whether he would condemn the false claim made by the prime minister.

Nicolson said: “Minister, you are responsible for online harms.

“We all agree that disinformation is a scourge and I want to ask you about something topical because too often disinformation crosses over from the online world to the offline world.

“Yesterday the prime minister repeated an online trope, that Kier Starmer chose as DPP not to prosecute the prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile.

“This was online disinformation entering the offline world.

“The culture secretary chose to defend the prime minister last night and this morning we had the justice secretary choosing not to disassociate himself from this completely unproved allegation.

“As disinformation minister, will you do so now?”

Philp told the committee he had come to “talk about the Bill rather than to debate contentious matters”.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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