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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Entertainment
Jessica Sansome

Richard Madeley responds after backlash over Keir Starmer remark on ITV Good Morning Britain

Richard Madeley has cleared up his comments after he came under fire for a remark about Kier Starmer on ITV Good Morning Britain.

During Tuesday's episode the TV presenter spoke about the death threats which had reportedly been sent to the Labour leader.

It came after the news was reported that an investigation had been launched into the threats made against Sir Keir after Boris Johnson made the false claim about the opposition leader and Jimmy Savile.

On Tuesday's GMB, Richard and co-host Ranvir Singh were talking to Andrew Pierce, consultant editor of the Daily Mail, and Kevin Maguire, associate editor at the Daily Mirror.

READ MORE: Katie McGlynn confirms Hollyoaks exit nine months after joining as co-star shares gushing tribute

As they discussed the latest news headlines, Andrew remarked in response to the Sir Kier story that ‘"politicians get that all the time."

This led Richard to say: "Well I was going to say, actually, is that that big a deal?"

Appearing on the ITV news programme on Wednesday alongside Charlotte Hawkins, the 65-year-old was quick to clear things up.

"It was a really busy show yesterday, we had so much to do. I want to say one thing very quickly at the top here," he said early into the start of the latest show.

"I tried to pose a question on one of our early discussions on the programme about how prolific online death threats are. I didn’t actually quite press it properly, I didn’t go into it enough.

Sir Keir confirmed he had received the threats (PA)

"I just want to reiterate the obvious statement that death threats clearly are never acceptable."

On Monday (February 14) Sir Keir confirmed he received death threats following Boris Johnson’s false claim that he failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile.

The Labour leader said the Prime Minister’s slur had “fed into” a “right-wing conspiracy theory”, and this had caused “difficulty”.

But he said he would rather not talk about the matter because he did not want his young children to hear “too much” of what may be said about him.

When asked if Mr Johnson condemned the threats, the PM’s official spokesman told reporters: "Yes."

He added: "Any sort of death threats to politicians are never acceptable."

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