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How crafty Marr outfoxed Prime Minister: ANDREW PIERCE with the stories the spin doctors DON'T want you to read: Yoicks!

Published: 17:35 EST, 20 April 2015 | Updated: 20:54 EST, 20 April 2015

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During an otherwise confident performance on the BBC's Andrew Marr show this weekend, the Prime Minister stumbled badly when he was challenged over fox hunting.

'You told the Countryside Alliance your favourite sport is fox hunting. Is that really true?' asked an incredulous Marr. As David Cameron looked surprised, Marr repeated the question.

In fact, Cameron never said any such thing to the Countryside Alliance. Marr's assertion was based on an article Cameron wrote for the Countryside Alliance magazine last month.

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During an otherwise confident performance on the BBC's Andrew Marr show this weekend, the Prime Minister stumbled badly when he was challenged over fox hunting

David Cameron on The Andrew Marr Show ahead of election

What he said was: 'There is definitely a rural way of life which a born and bred Londoner might struggle to understand. I have always been a strong supporter of country sports.

'It is my firm belief that people should have the freedom to hunt, so I share the frustration many people feel about the Hunting Act and the way it was brought in by the last government.

'The Hunting Act has done nothing for animal welfare. A Conservative Government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote, with a government Bill in government time.'

Marr now says it was a 'cock-up, not a conspiracy', but still the interview left the impression that Cameron's love of the tally-ho brigade went much further, reinforcing the view of him as an out-of-touch Old Etonian toff.

A dirty game, politics

The embattled Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy resorts to foul play during an Edinburgh football match played to raise awareness of Motor Neurone disease.

In a metaphor for his election campaign, fear is etched in his face as he swerves to the left.

With the Scottish Tory MSP Gavin Brown in pursuit of the ball, Murphy resorts to shoving his opponent to try to deflect him.

Bet he wouldn't dare deploy the same tactics against SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon...

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy shrugs off the challenge of Scottish Tory MSP Gavin Brown in the match

Quote of the day

UKIP'S Nigel Farage says: 'You know, having taken part in those two TV debates, having seen the dynamics between Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon, it's pretty clear to me in that relationship who would wear the trousers.'

Keir, Labour's (very) quiet knight

After the misguided pursuit of journalists for paying public officials was left in ruins — as prosecutors dropped a raft of cases last week — there's been a conspicuous silence from Labour's Keir Starmer.

Starmer, a close friend of Red Ed Miliband, is standing in the safe Labour seat of Holborn and St Pancras and is the party's would-be Attorney General, the government's chief legal adviser.

And it was Starmer who was running the Crown Prosecution Service when it began its tainted witch-hunt of tabloid journalists.

He controversially pushed the use of an obscure 13th-century law — misconduct in public office — to go after people for what amounted to them simply doing their jobs pursuing the public interest.

Starmer has since been reminiscing about his time as the Director of Public Prosecutions. 'When I was DPP, everyone called me 'director' and I said: 'Please don't call me director, call me Keir Starmer.' I have never liked titles,' he told a local newspaper. This is the same Keir Starmer, QC, who last year accepted a knighthood, no less.

Yet he is just plain Keir — as in Keir Hardie, the first Labour Party leader — in his election literature, and his aides have asked people not to address him as Sir.

They fear the knighthood will alienate voters in the urban constituency.

If the knighthood doesn't, perhaps the £20 million wasted prosecuting the journalists will...

Nicola Sturgeon, who wants to hold Red Ed to ransom, is a fan of Danish TV's Borgen — in which charismatic Birgitte Nyborg becomes surprise leader of a coalition.

'I may have re-watched Borgen once or twice,' says Sturgeon, who named Nyborg as her favourite fictional politician.

She told Radio Times she even wants Sidse Babett Knudsen, who plays Birgitte, to portray her in any film of her life.

Presumptuous Nicola misses the point. Nyborg kept Denmark together by finding common ground between warring parties. Sturgeon just wants to break up the UK.