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A Sky News presenter condemned a Tory minister’s “ludicrous” claim that his party will not spend more than is set out in their manifesto if they win the election.
Wilfred Frost slammed Kevin Hollinrake as he tried to claim a Labour government would have to put up people’s taxes to make their sums add up.
The clash came after Frost said the Conservative campaign was on the verge of “implosion” after the party became embroiled in a spat with Martin Lewis yesterday.
The Tories’ official X account posted a video of Lewis which it claims proved Labour had a secret plan to put up taxes.
But Lewis hit back: “NO WHERE in this comment do I talk about taxes. And the policy that I discussed (i will keep private as it was private) was NOT about taxes, or tax rises, it was about something that would be a positive change.”
On Sky News Breakfast, Frost told Hollinrake: “It seems that rather than settling to score one point, you reached to try and score 10 points and included details in a tweet that weren’t accurate – certainly an exaggeration if not an outright fabrication.
“Is it a sign of desperation, even more than that with the tweets that followed, almost implosion from Conservative Party headquarters?”
Hollinrake said it would be “wrong” for the party to tweet anything inaccurate.
“We don’t need to be inaccurate because the Labour Party’s been quite clear,” he said. “I saw Wes Streeting on Laura Kuenssberg a week or two ago, who said quite clearly the manifesto is not the sum total of its spending plans.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody that Labour will spend more in the next parliament than they’ve already committed to do, and that will result in more taxation.”
Frost replied: “But the same applies to you, doesn’t it? We could talk about the Rwanda plan, which was not mentioned anywhere in anybody’s manifestos back in 2019, it’s cost an absolute fortune.
“It’s fair to say that both manifestos, as we sit here today for 2024, there’ll be things that come up in the next parliament that aren’t mentioned in them.”
The minister said: “We don’t believe there will be anything we’ll do in the next parliament that will create extra taxation, that’s the key, because we’ve got a plan to control public spending.”
Frost then hit back: “That’s a ludicrous thing to say. In 2019 did you predict that you’d have to spend an absolute fortune on the pandemic, on the war in Ukraine, on this Rwanda plan?
“How can you sit here now and say the Conservatives, and only the Conservatives, not labour, promise that the manifesto contains every single pound you’ll need to spend?”
Hollinrake replied: “It’s about the plans for the future – that’s the difference.
“Of course if there’s some once in a lifetime event that happens in the next parliament, that would be different. The difference is we know Labour have other plans.”
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