Richard Madeley went in on Starmer this morning over his wilful blindness when it comes to Angela Rayner’s exonerating tax advice. Starmer rolled out the old “it was 10-15 years ago” defence and said: “I’ve given many legal advices over the years, they’re all confidential, and they’re confidential for a reason“. Madeley then points out that doesn’t hold water because people in Starmer’s team have seen the advice, and then, presumably, told him that it is fine. So much for confidential…

Madeley summed it up pretty perfectly:

“I’ll just put this to you: Is it a case of ‘see no evil, speak no evil’? Are you concerned that if you look at it as a leader you’re going to see something in there – a paragraph, a reference – which makes you think ‘whoop that’s going to cause problems and I don’t want that running up to an election I don’t want to know that I don’t want to see that I’d rather not know?‘”

Starmer tried a new line:

“If a member of my shadow cabinet tells me that they’re off to have an operation I don’t ask to see the medical advice, I don’t ask for their medical notes.“

Not quite the same as a police investigation…