Angela Rayner has failed to deny saying Sir Keir Starmer was “incapable of running a bath”.

A new book about Sir Keir’s leadership claims that the now Deputy Prime Minister texted the remark to a confidante during the party’s time in opposition.

Get In, by political journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, includes the line: “It could not be Starmer, she [Rayner] said, because he was incapable of running a bath – never mind the opposition.”

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Rayner was asked directly whether she made the comment or not.

She replied: “Well, I’m not… You know, there’s a lot of things that were said in that book that I don’t recognise, to be honest.”