COCK & BULL TORY

>> Sunak slammed after lying that Labour would hike taxes >> Critics say it shows the PM is just as bad as Boris Johnson

- PAUL HUTCHEON and ANDREW QUINN

DESPERATE Rishi Sunak has been branded a "liar" after getting caught making bogus claims about Labour's tax plans.

The Prime Minister said on live TV that civil servants were behind figures showing voters would face a £2000 tax bill under a Keir Starmer government.

But a top Treasury official pulled the rug from under Sunak by denying his colleagues had produced the numbers.

Starmer last night hit out, saying "What you saw last night was a Prime Minister with his back against the wall, trying desperately to defend an awful record in office, resorting to lies and deliberately lying Labour's Shadow Scotland Secretary Ian Murray said: "In the words of the great Bobby Ball, on taxation Rishi Sunak is a little liar.

He has resorted to using made-up figures to try and revive his flagging campaign.

"This is a sign of how chaotic and desperate the Tory campaign has become." In front of an audience of millions, Sunak used the ITV head-to-head with Starmer to claim a Labour government would badly hit people in the pocket.

He said Labour needed to plug a £38.5billion black hole and attributed the £2000-per-household figure over four years to "independent Treasury officials".

But Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler said the headline figure used by the Tories should not be attributed to impartial civil servants.

In a letter to Labour's shadow Treasury chief secretary Darren Jones, he said the £38.5billion figure includes "costs beyond those provided by the civil service".