DONALD Trump has been accused of being as “thick as two short planks”.
Veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner made the claim in Parliament as he questioned why the US President receives information about Britain’s nuclear deterrent that UK MPs are denied.
His remarks came after the Commons heard a US official briefed that an unarmed Trident missile automatically self-destructed off the coast of Florida, amid reports it went off course during a test launch last June.
Mr Skinner, MP for Bolsover, asked Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon: “How can this be an independent nuclear deterrent if, on the one hand, Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, a man that is as thick as two short planks, is given the information, and the whole of the Opposition benches are not allowed it?”
Sir Michael replied: “As you know very well, the nuclear deterrent that has served us so well is independent because its operational control rests with our Prime Minister not with the President of the United States.”
Labour former frontbencher Mary Creagh earlier told Sir Michael: “You have advised us not to believe everything we read in the Sunday newspapers.
“But should we believe the White House official who, while we’ve been sitting here debating, has confirmed to CNN that a missile did auto self-destruct off the coast of Florida? And if that is the case, why is the British Parliament and the British public the last people to know?”
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