Keir Starmer has declined five times to answer whether Jeremy Corbyn would have been a “better Prime Minister” than Boris Johnson.
Labour ’s leader said “a Labour government would be far better than the government we’ve got”, but swerved talking about Mr Corbyn - who has since been suspended from the party whip.
He added: “We lost very badly in 2019, and my job as leader of the Labour Party has been to change our party, turn it round.”
The party chief was asked the pointed question by BBC interviewer Justin Webb after he blasted Boris Johnson for “blowing away” his own pledges on rail for the north.
Sir Keir insisted he could “feel a real change in the last two to three weeks” in the public mood, “where people are beginning I think to see the Prime Minister for what he really is.”
He added: “He’s a man who has never thought the rules apply to him and his mates - so it’s one rule for him and his mates, another for everybody else, and you saw that in the Paterson affair.
“He’s a Prime Minister who thinks he can make promises and then break them and there’ll be no consequences.”
But questioned about his predecessor by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Labour’s leader was more careful in his language.
Asked if he was still convinced Jeremy Corbyn would have been a better Prime Minister, he replied: “Well look, the public gave us our verdict on that argument pretty strongly in 2019. We lost.”
Asked a second time, he said: “A Labour government would be far better than the government we’ve got.”
Asked a third time, he said: “What I’ve been doing is I’ve recognised the scale of what’s happened.”
Asked a fourth time, he replied: “Well look, what have we got in the Prime Minister? We’ve got a Prime Minister who has…”
Asked why he would not answer the question, he replied: “A Labour government is always better than a Conservative government”.
Asked if that meant Jeremy Corbyn would have been better than Boris Johnson, he replied: “We lost very badly in 2019, and my job as leader of the Labour Party has been to change our party, turn it round, and that’s what we’ve been doing.
“I appreciate the rule changes we had at conference are boring process, but they don’t have show we’ve changed the Labour Party and set out a positive case for the future.
“But also to draw a distinction between my instincts and the instincts of the Prime Minister, I think that by and large in Britain, people believe we should play by the rules, get on by playing by the rules, and you don’t rip up the rules just to protect a mate.”
Sir Keir also defended calling for a ban on MPs earning money from legal work - despite earning more than £100,000 in that way himself.
He said: “If you look at standards over many years in Parliament there are points at which we move forward and change the rules. And I think this is one of those points.
“It’s not to judge anybody who’s acted in accordance with the rules in the past.”
He added: “I actually gave up my legal practicing certificate nearly two years ago now, so I haven’t been able to nor have I given legal advice for the best part of two years.
“Some of the payments I’ve had recently go back a number of years, including for work before I became an MP.”
It came as Sir Keir said the Government has “blown away” its levelling up plans by leaving the North and Midlands with second-class rail links.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed the High Speed 2 (HS2) eastern leg to Leeds had been ditched, and plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail were downgraded.
Mr Shapps denied the Government has reneged on rail promises for the region and accused Sir Keir of “misleading people”.
But the Labour leader told BBC Radio 5: “The Government has ripped up those promises and betrayed people in the North. I was in Bradford yesterday and the anger is palpable. People feel very strongly that promises have been made to them and they have just been ripped up.
“The idea that ‘levelling up’ is anything more than a slogan has absolutely blown away by what happened yesterday.
“The whole point of HS2 was a high speed line going up including to Leeds. The whole point of the promise of Northern Powerhouse Rail was a new line going from Manchester to Leeds. Trying to upgrade what you have got is a second-class option for the North.”
Mr Johnson pledged the full HS2 line as recently as February. And the 2019 Tory manifesto said: "We will build Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and Manchester."
But the plans were dropped on Thursday with fears they could have cost up to £185billion.
Instead of HS2 to Leeds, there will be a high speed line from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway, near Nottingham. The western HS2 track from Crewe to Manchester, will go ahead.
Mr Shapps told Sky News: “When it comes to HS2, we are going to deliver HS2 trains (we are looking at) the best way to do that into Leeds. The plan for HS2 was conceived 15 years ago.
“What we want to do is make sure it actually integrates with these plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail which we are building.
“The only disconnect is some of the complaints from, I have to say, largely Labour leaders who are completely misleading people.”
Several of the complaints have come from Tory politicians.
