Martin Lewis has hit out at the Tories after the party used a video clip of him to accuse Labour of planning to put up taxes.
A post on X from their official account showed the Money Saving Expert on ITV’s Good Morning Britain saying he had “a private conversation” with a senior Labour Party figure.
In it, Lewis said: “The exact phrase they used with me is, when I asked about a particular policy, was ’we’re not putting it in our manifesto because I can’t commit we’ll do it, but it is my aim that we will do it over the next parliament”.
The accompanying post said: “They’re not telling you the full truth. Labour have said they wouldn’t put up your taxes. But it’s now becoming clear that they have every intention to put them up.”
In his response, Lewis said: “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.”
In a further embarrassment for the Tories, a community note has been added to their post saying: “This video has been attached with the intention to mislead voters into thinking Labour will be raising taxes if they win the election.
“Martin Lewis does not mention tax at all in the clip.”
Business minister Kevin Hollinrake was put on the spot over the row when he appeared on Sky News this morning.
Presenter Wilfred Frost told him: “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.