Sound and fury follows Tory tax claim

With election campaigning in the UK all but paused for D-Day commemorations, the vacuum has been filled by an almighty row over a Tory attack line. During Tuesday’s televised debate, Rishi Sunak repeatedly claimed that Labour would raise household taxes by £2,000. Keir Starmer was slow to rebut the claim and it dominated the headlines. The next day, the Labour leader was more robust, accusing Sunak of lying. The Tories insisted the claim was based on figures produced by civil servants in the Treasury; Labour then released a letter from senior Treasury official James Bowler confirming that civil servants were not involved. Fact checkers at FullFact said the claim was “unreliable” and called on the Tories to correct the “high profile falsehood”, noting that it comes at a time when “public trust in politics is hanging by a thread”.