Last night Twitter was lively and claiming that Andrea Leadsom had brought up the subject of family and motherhood, this was briefed to the Sunday Times’ political editor Tim Shipman:

Leadsom’s words were apparently in answer to a question about what differentiates her from May, not a leading question. She offered it. — Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) July 8, 2016

This morning Rachel Sylvester was out defending her story, claiming that it was Andrea who introduced the issue of family:

However the partial audio released from The Times has Rachel Sylvester introducing the issue in a question thus:

Rachel Sylvester: “Does your family inform your politics? Do you think motherhood – I thought it was very interesting during the debates you several times said, ‘as a mum’. Do you feel like a mum in politics?”

Which clearly contradicting Rachel’s claim made at 09:04 to the BBC:

Rachel Sylvester: “What was so striking was it was she her introduced the issue of family, I didn’t raise it at all… it wasn’t I who introduced it, she did.”

An hour later at 10:04 the BBC has Rachel Sylvester saying she did raise the question:

So apparently contradictory assertions. Goes without saying that Leadsom completely denies raising the issue, calling the claim “gutter journalism”. The only way to establish whether or not Andrea Leadsom has been stitched up is to release the full recording – something The Times is refusing to do…