I’VE always been deeply suspicious when a politician goes on TV and says “they don’t recognise” an unhelpful story written about them.

It’s always been a red rag to a bull when a spin doctor tells me they “don’t recognise” my questions over an imminent sacking, reshuffle or policy announcement — only for it to happen days, or sometimes even hours, later.

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I’ve always been deeply suspicious when a politician goes on TV and says ‘they don’t recognise’ an unhelpful story written about them Credit: PA

The Labour government has routinely had to reject stories in recent months

It’s a cop-out phrase that broadly means: “Your story is correct but inconvenient so we don’t want to admit it — and while we can’t deny it, we don’t want to straight-up lie.”

Just recently, the Government has “not recognised” word-for-word leaks from the National Security Council, only to launch a formal inquiry into whodunnit.

Apparently, the Chancellor did not “recognise those numbers” when confronted with a reported £28billion shortfall in MoD funding, only for it to be later confirmed by respected Defence figures.

Nor did the Home Secretary “recognise” reports that the Government had played an obvious part in the collapse of the Chinese spying trial just before Sir Keir Starmer’s kow-towing tour to Beijing.

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A flick through my notebook reveals some absolute classics from No10 over the years, all with that same stock phrase.

“Put to her that Downing Street sounded like a ‘nest of vipers’, the spokeswoman said: ‘I don’t recognise that’.”’

After accusations of sexism in the heart of the Starmer operation, the browbeaten spokeswoman was back insisting: “I just don’t recognise those characterisations at all.”

Or how about the Labour MP who told the Press “I don’t recognise the allegations” during a sex scandal, only to be ousted days later under a cloud of guilt.

So imagine my smug vindication when reading the latest instalment of the Peter Files — thousands of text messages and emails that ministers and aides were forced to turf over in the wake of the Mandelson saga.

There’s an absolute corker of an exchange between the once all-powerful Dark Lord and his buddy Matthew Doyle, who was then Starmer’s chief ­spinner.

Confronted about a Jattvibe story that Mandelson had been in talks with Nigel ­Farage, Doyle quizzes his ­mentor, asking: “Can I assume you don’t recognise this?”

With his usual masterful spin, Mandy admits he had been freely texting the Reform chief about how to handle Trump just days before, adding: “How does he define ‘held talks’?”

A trial into Chinese spying collapsed just before Sir Keir Starmer’s kow-towing tour to Beijing Credit: Reuters

Labour has denied there is two-tier policing in the UK in a response to criticism from the US Credit: Getty

When it’s clear the story is bang on the money, what does Doyle suggest? “I’ll say not something we recognise in No10 but gently.”

There it is in black and white. A white lie at best.

Which brings me to the latest iteration of that poisonous little phrase.

“We don’t recognise the characterisation of two-tier policing”, Downing Street said last night.

“They were responding to an all-out blast from the Trump administration over the murder of Henry Nowak and the evil reaction of the police.Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilisational decline,” said the US State Department.

“They must be rejected across the West.”

Is there anything to really object to there, beyond national embarrassment?

I, too, have been short of words to describe the seething rage felt watching that awful bodycam film of the right-on copper’s, smug, lanyard-class-knows-best attitude as they cuffed the dying boy.

The Trump administration blasted the UK over the handling of the death of Henry Nowak Credit: PA

The family of Henry Nowak met PM Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street Credit: AFP

So important yet soul- destroying are that young man’s last moments, I both urge you to watch it in full — not to turn away, not shut your eyes — yet also somehow avoid ever watching it. But was that really the best Downing Street could do.

We all know what the phrase really means now: It’s true but we just don’t want to say it.

The political communications equivalent of sticking your ­fingers in your ears and screaming: “La, la, la!” Yet how can they not recognise what has happened to Britain in just a quarter of a century?

Grooming gang victims told to shut up for the sake of diversity, ignored or belittled to protect that pernicious greater good: community cohesion.

Victoria Climbie — scalded, starved and beaten with a hammer under the noses of East London social services, cops, charities and the church.

After systemic collapse led to the eight-year-old’s death, key figures admitted it was fear of being labelled racist for ­confronting black abusers that led to institutional “paralysis”.

Little Sara Sharif, aged just ten, forced into a hijab and burned and strangled — failed by Surrey neighbours too afraid to go to the authorities for fear of that dreaded R-word.

Headteacher Joanne Hodson identified Southport monster Axel Rudakubana as a frenzied threat — only for some clown to accuse her of “racially ­stereotyping him as a black boy with a knife”.

Softer sentences for ethnic minorities, juries splitting down racial and cultural lines, politicians justifying race rioting overseas while branding anyone peacefully protesting in Britain as “far right”.

The Premier League forced to take the knee for two years in the wake of George Floyd’s death, but any march for Henry Nowak is apparently “divisive” — the ­second worst word on the ­progressives’ chart of Very Bad Things.

I could go on and on with the list of obvious signs something is deeply sick in British justice, policing and politics.

You can’t fail to recognise the pattern that only seems to go one way, in the dangerous over-correction to accusations of historic police racism.

Our friends and allies can clearly see it, and those in Britain not brainwashed in the public sector can see it too.

If Downing Street does “not recognise” two-tier Britain, they are only lying to themselves.