'You’ve got a bit of a nerve, haven’t you, having a go at the Labour Party?'
Rishi Sunak’s election campaign is full of car crash interviews, the latest of which occurred last night during a gruelling interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson.
Sunak took part in a long form election interview with Robinson, the first party leader to do so, where he faced questions on tax and spend, immigration, the NHS and the overall Tory record in office.
During the first leaders debate with Keir Starmer, Sunak lied and claimed that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 per working household. The Treasury’s top civil servant criticised the Conservatives for presenting the figure as if it had been produced by impartial civil servants.
The UK statistics watchdog also rebuked the Prime Minister over his claim. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) said anyone who heard Mr Sunak say Labour’s plan would mean £2,000 of tax rises per working household would have no way of knowing that was a sum totalled over four years.
However, none of that stopped Sunak from repeating his false claim when he was interviewed by Robinson.
Robinson told Sunak: “You’ve got a bit of a nerve, haven’t you, having a go at the Labour Party?
“You’ve raised our taxes by record amounts, £93 billion. You’ve produced some figures, criticised by the boss of the Treasury, criticised by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, criticised by the former head of the civil service.
“And yet you come to this interview and you repeat something that you’ve said that they all think is misleading.”
A stunned Sunak replied: “Because, it’s right”.
Some viewers were left shocked with how calmly Sunak was willing to repeat the discredited claim, with one user posting on X: “Rishi Sunak repeats the £2,000 Labour tax rise lie. Nick Robinson tears it apart.
“But Rishi Sunak doubles down repeating the lie. Why would anyone vote for such a shameless blatant liar?”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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