Former prime minister David Cameron has said it is a “giant red herring” to suggest Russian money influenced policy against Vladimir Putin in any way when he was in power.

He said there was a “very careful system for vetting who could and who could not give money to the Conservative Party”, and “crucially” Britain had “the strongest anti-Putin policy of any country in Europe”.

Speaking to LBC’s Tonight With Andrew Marr, Mr Cameron was asked about reports Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Mr Putin’s former deputy finance minister, paid £160,000 to play tennis with him and then-London mayor Boris Johnson in 2014.

He said: “I do, I remember. There was absolutely no conversation about Russia, or about finance, or about Putin, or anything else.”

Put to him that “Russians with really close Kremlin links were still very, very close to the top of the Conservative Party” during his premiership, he said: “I don’t accept that.”

He added: “Britain had the strongest anti-Putin policy of any country in Europe. Who threw him out of the G8? Who insisted on the sanctions? Who passed the rules on beneficial ownership?

“So I think the idea, it’s a giant red herring to suggest in some way that Russian money somehow influenced policy against Putin and Russia. We had a far tougher policy than other countries.

“Go and ask the Baltic ministers and prime ministers, ask the Poles, ask the people who sat in the room with me in the European Council knowing I was their strongest ally in building a really robust case to hold Putin to account.”

Mr Cameron also called Mr Putin a “phenomenal liar”.

He said that when he hosted the Russian president in No 10 in 2013, Mr Putin “let his guard down and said, ‘Fundamentally I’m not a democrat and I don’t share your interests’.”

David Cameron and Vladimir Putin
David Cameron and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the second plenary session of the G8 summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland in 2013 (Ben Stanstall/PA)

He added: “He was also a phenomenal liar.

“I remember confronting him with evidence that Russian troops were in the Donbas, he flat out lied, I remember confronting him with evidence about the shooting down of a Malaysia Airline, there was no naivety.”

Meanwhile, Mr Cameron said Mr Johnson took a “very good step” appointing Richard Harrington as minister for refugees.

It was announced on Tuesday that Mr Harrington, who stood down as an MP at the 2019 general election, will be made a life peer sitting in the House of Lords.

Mr Cameron said: “Well, I know what it’s like when, as Prime Minister, you want something to happen, you say something should happen and we should be generous, and it doesn’t happen. It’s incredibly frustrating,” he said.

“I think the Prime Minister took a very good step in appointing Richard Harrington as a special minister to deal with refugees.

“This is what I did, exactly the same person – with the Syrian refugees, we had a programme to allow 25,000 people in, to find them from the camps. I asked Richard to get it done. He was brilliant at it. And I’m sure he will on this.

“And I hope he is allowed to say… if we want to go shorter visas, if it’s just Ukrainian passports, and perhaps something else, let’s find the way to get it done, I would put my trust in him and give him the ability.”

He declined to criticise Home Secretary Priti Patel, adding: “I’m not here to pick apart different people in the Government, I’m trying to avoid that in my post-office life.

“But we’ve got to get this done, the Prime Minister wants it done and I’m sure it will be.”