Another excruciating Starmerbot malfunction this morning, as Sir Keir fails four times on the Today Programme to confirm whether Durham Police have been in touch with his office over Beergate. A whole bank holiday weekend to come up with a better line and this is the best he could do…

“We were working in the office, it was just before elections, we were busy, we paused for food. No party, no rules were broken, that is the long and short of it… the police looked at this month ago, which is that no rules were broken. And that’s because no rules were broken… they’ve already concluded their investigation… if the Conservative Party put as much effort into answering the question ‘how are you going to help people with their energy bills’ as they’re putting into this mudslinging, they’d actually do a service for millions of people…”

When host Martha Kearney pointed out how dodging simple questions like this only makes things worse, Starmer trotted out the same response almost verbatim. Yesterday he also refused to confirm if he’d cooperate with the police should the choose to reinvestigate. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would’ve worked…