Former editor of The Sun Kelvin Mackenzie has blasted the Deputy PM Oliver Dowden's response to China's latest cyber attack against the UK.
This comes as the Deputy Prime Minister condemned the "malicious" attacks by "China affiliated actors", and imposed sanctions on those responsible.
Speaking to Patrick Christys on GB News, Mackenzie praised conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith who said that he welcomed the sanctions, but claimed they are the equivalent of an "elephant giving birth to a mouse".
He said: "It's completely shocking and it hasn't worked out well. But that guy, Oliver Dowden, what a waste of space he is.
Kelvin Mackenzie blasted the MP as a "waste of space"
GB News/GETTY
"Because Labour appears to be winning by about 28 thousand per cent now, he'll be pushing a broom outside some corporate comms unit by the end of this year.
"This is the problem. The problem is we talk tough, but we don't do tough."
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He added: "I really admire Duncan Smith because at least he's been pushing this now for way north of a decade. He knew Huawei was a danger, and it took years before the rest of the government caught up with it.
"We do not possess a real will. If we had a real will, we would say we will never trade with you again. China may not give us stuff, but at least we'd be strong."
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the actions were “completely unacceptable” and he had raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
The Chinese ambassador has also been summoned to the Foreign Office to account for his country’s actions.
The Deputy PM gave a statement in the Commons yesterday House of Commons In the statement, the Deputy PM said: "We recognise the seriousness of this issue, particularly in a year when so many democratic elections will be taking place around the world. Members, we want to be reassured that the government is taking steps to address the associated threat.
"I can confirm today that Chinese state affiliated actors were responsible for two malicious cyber campaigns targeting both our democratic institutions and parliamentarians.
"First, the compromise of the United Kingdom Electoral Commission between 2021 and 2022, which was announced last summer, and second attempted reconnaissance activity against UK parliamentary accounts in a separate campaign in 2021.
"Later today, a number of our international partners, including the United States, will be issuing similar statements to expose this activity."
Sanctions have been implemented on Zhao Guangzong, Ni Gaobin and the Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd, who they say work for the China state-affiliated cyber espionage group Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31 (APT31).
Yesterday Sir Iain Duncan Smith told GB News: “As I was watching this torturous procedure, I couldn't understand why they hyped this all over the weekend, only to discover that it's a tiny thing they're doing.
“The company, the entity, by the way, is tiny. I mean, it's literally a few hundred thousand in terms of turnover and a tiny number of people. So this is really pathetic and very small when we know very well that I’ve been sanctioned, six other of my colleagues in Parliament have been sanctioned and all of our families at the same time.
“We have no idea from the Foreign Office whether we face red notices; that’s arrest on sight if we enter a country that has an extradition agreement with China or Hong Kong. They've been very slow and very hopeless. But since we were sanctioned three years ago, tomorrow, what's actually happened over sanctioning is nothing.