Ofcom has received a flood of complaints about Good Morning Britain host Richard Madeley’s recent comments on death threats made against Keir Starmer.
Some 850 people complained to the TV watchdog after Richard asked if it was “a big deal” that threats had been made to the Labour leader.
This came in the wake of Boris Johnson’s false accusation that Starmer had been more focused on prosecuting journalists rather than serial sex offender Jimmy Savile during his previous job as the director of the public prosecutions.
Speaking on the ITV breakfast show earlier this month, Richard said: “Now, we learnt yesterday that Keir Starmer is getting death threats online; people calling for his execution...”
Debating the matter, GMB regular Andrew Pierce suggested “politicians get that all the time,” before Richard added: “I was going to say... is it that big of a deal?”
Andrew replied: “No.”
Ofcom will now assess the complaints before deciding whether to investigate, as is standard procedure.
Following the exchange, many viewers spoke out against the pair’s comments, which Richard addressed at the beginning of the following day’s show.
“I tried to pose a question in one of our early discussions on the programme about how prolific online death threats are. I didn’t actually quite address it properly, I didn’t go into it enough,” he said.
He added: “I just want to reiterate the obvious statement that death threats clearly are never acceptable.”
Good Morning Britain airs every weekday from 6am.