Keir Starmer has launched a sweary tirade at Boris Johnson, calling him a “bullshitter” who took the “piss” out of the public.
The Labour leader turned the air blue with his attack on the departing prime minister in an episode of The Rest Is Politics podcast.
He made the comments a week after culture secretary Nadine Dorries heckled him from the front bench calling him “boring”.
Starmer told the presenters former Labour spinner Alastair Campbell and ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart: “I think that he is a complete bullshitter and I think he’s been found out.
“I’m really struck with the partygate stuff because it wasn’t just that he did things which broke the rules it’s that he then took the piss out of the public with his ridiculous defences afterwards.
“And in the local elections, I accept that not everyone on doors was saying ‘it’s that that’s done it for me’ but there was a general realisation that this guy bullshits and if he’s bullshitting about that, he’s probably bullshitting about everything.
“All this stuff about levelling up, when people can see there’s not much happening around near them, I think there’s this sense that this guy doesn’t mean a word that he says and that goes very, very deep.
“That’s why I don’t think there’s ever any way back for him.”
It comes as Starmer is set to go head-to-head with Johnson one last time during Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions.
Tory MPs will vote on the PM’s successor between 1pm and 3pm, with the result announced by Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, at 4pm.
The final two candidates will then be put to party members to make the final decision, with the winner announced on September 5.