Richard Madeley was forced to begin Wednesday's Good Morning Britain with an apology after a remark about death threats against Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
On Tuesday's show, former This Morning star Richard made a flippant comment about Starmer receiving death threats after Boris Johnson 's false claim that he failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Saville.
Richard said: "Shall we quickly touch on Keir Starmer, because the row over what Boris said in the Commons about Jimmy Savile rumbles on, now we learn yesterday that Keir Starmer says he’s getting death threats online. People calling for his execution.’
He was joined in the ITV studio by Andrew Pierce, consultant editor of the Daily Mail who reacted to Richard's news by replying: "‘Well I think politicians get that all the time."
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And it was what Richard said next that provoked a negative response from viewers, when he added: "Well I was going to say, actually, is that that big a deal?"
Richard was lambasted online for his comment and, in the aftermath of the backlash against him, chose the opening moments of today's GMB to apologise.
Sitting next to colleague Charlotte Hawkins just after 6am, Richard said: "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; 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 quite address it properly, I didn't go into it enough. I just want to reiterate the obvious statement that death threats clearly are never acceptable."
Richard then swiftly changed the topic of discussion to Prince Andrew and many people watching at home were deeply unsatisfied with his apology.
One took to Twitter to blast: "Richard Madeley's insincere, rushed through "apology" this morning was unacceptable. He came across as someone who had been told to apologise but didn't mean it. Am I right?"
A second posted: "Very disappointed with Richard Madeley’s lame non apology for suggesting that death threats aren’t significant. Sneaked in early and rushed. He should have discussed with Pierce and they should have both apologised," and a third wrote: "If that was an apology by Richard Madeley, it was pretty pathetic. So insincere."
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