Labour accuse Sunak of lying over £2,000 tax attack during election debate as Treasury note casts doubt on claim

Published

4 months ago

June 5, 2024

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Labour have accused Rishi Sunak of lying after he claimed Sir Keir Starmer wants to put taxes up by £2,000 a year.

Mr Sunak claimed multiple times during the first TV election debate that Labour’s plans for the country were not costed and would require tax rises of £2,000 per family due to a £38.5bn black hole over four years, a number he said was worked out by impartial civil servants.

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Sir Keir called the claim “absolute garbage” during the ITV debate on Tuesday, but Labour shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth went further on Wednesday when he told Sky News’ Breakfast with Kay Burley: “This is a desperate lie.”

“He lied about Labour’s tax plans. What he said last night about Labour’s tax plans is categorically untrue,” he added.

“Labour will not put up income tax, not put up National Insurance will not put up VAT.

“And I think what we showed last night with Rishi Sunak… was how desperate he becomes – what desperate people do is they lie.”

The Labour Party said the costings relied on “assumptions from special advisers” appointed by the prime minister rather than an impartial Civil Service assessment.

Doubt was also cast on the Tory claims by a note from the Treasury’s chief civil servant which emerged on Wednesday. It said civil servants were not involved in the calculation of the total figure used and that he had reminded ministers not to present any costings as having been produced by civil servants.

The Conservatives have continually claimed during the first two weeks of the election campaign that Labour have no plans for the UK’s future.

During the debate, Mr Sunak used the same line of attack, adding: “Keir Starmer is asking you to hand him a blank cheque when he hasn’t said what he’ll buy with it or how much it’s going to cost you.”

But Mr Ashworth said: “Every commitment we are making in this campaign is funded.

“We’re explaining where every penny piece comes from.”

Mr Ashworth also accused Mr Sunak of being “no better than Boris Johnson, who lied over parties in Downing Street in lockdown”.

“He’s exposed himself as no better and no different. He is desperate and he’s lying to the British public,” Mr Ashworth added.

Read Sky News analysis on the TV debate:
Leaders couldn’t wait to tear into each other
PM may have shaded it but probably won’t win election

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A Conservative spokesman said: “We were fair to Labour in the production of the Labour Tax rise briefing note and used clear Labour policies, their own costings or official HMT [His Majesty’s Treasury] costings using the lowest assumptions.

“For example, using Labour’s figures for the spending items in the Green Prosperity Plan using £23.7bn over four years instead of £28bn a year.

“It is now for Labour to explain which of the policies which were Labour policy no longer are Labour policy.”

A snap YouGov poll after the debate found Mr Sunak narrowly came out on top, with 51% of the audience believing he fared better than Sir Keir.

But a poll by Savanta published on Wednesday morning had Sir Keir coming out on top with 44% and Mr Sunak on 39%, while 17% did not know.

When asked who came across as the most honest, the 1,153 adults polled by Savanta found Sir Starmer was the most honest (54%), while 29% thought Mr Sunak was.

Politics

Bank of Canada just says no to retail CBDC in reshuffling of priorities

Published

8 hours ago

September 20, 2024

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Bank of Canada just says no to retail CBDC in reshuffling of priorities

Regulating and speeding up payments without a CBDC are more important to the Canadian central bank.

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SEC approves options for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF

Published

8 hours ago

September 20, 2024

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<div>SEC approves options for BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF</div>

The SEC notice seemed to be an industry first after the commission approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on US exchanges in January.

Politics

Farage: It’s possible I could become PM

Published

8 hours ago

September 20, 2024

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Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.

He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.

“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.

He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.

“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”

Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.

He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.

But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.

Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.

Farage says Reform UK needs to ‘grow up’

By Darren McCaffrey, political correspondent in Birmingham

Reform and Nigel Farage can hardly believe their success.

Perhaps unsurprising, given they received over four million votes and now have five MPs.

But today this is a party that claims it has bigger ambitions – that it’s fighting for power.

Having taken millions of votes from the Conservatives, the party thinks it can do so with Labour voters too.

Reform finished second in 98 constituencies, 89 of them are Labour seats.

But it is a big ask, not least of all because it is a party still dominated by its controversial leader and primarily by one majority issue – migration.

Nigel Farage says the party needs to grow up and professionalise if it has a chance of further success.

This is undoubtedly true but if Reform is going to carry on celebrating, they know it also has to broaden its policy appeal beyond the overwhelming concern of its members.

“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.

He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.

He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”

Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.