Labour's 'dodgy dossier' exposed in 'embarrassing' first edition of manifesto

An early version of Labour’s election manifesto has been slammed after it claimed that pledges made in the Conservative Party’s manifesto would send annual mortgage payments skyrocketing.

In the document published by Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, it was claimed that the pledges would see annual mortgage payments rise by £4,800. It formed part of a speech Ms Reeves made straight after the Tories launched their manifesto.

She claimed that their spending plans would force the Government to borrow an extra £17.4bn in 2029-30 as part of a total of £71bn over the course of the Parliament. As a result, Ms Reeves claimed this would force the Bank of England to raise interest rates which in turn would be passed onto homeowners who would see their mortgage repayments rise by nearly £4,800 under this analysis.

However, the figure has since been slammed as being a “dodgy dossier” with figures and sums that were considered “completely nonsense”.

The Labour Party’s latest claim came in the same week the frontrunners in the general election began to publish their manifestos for what they would do if they received the keys to Downing Street after the election on July 4.

In her speech, Ms Reeves said of the Conservative Party’s claims: “The consequence of an increase in day-to-day borrowing to fund the commitments made in this manifesto would amount to a second Tory mortgage bombshell because higher borrowing at this scale would force the Bank of England to increase interest rates.

“The result would be an increase in the average mortgage totalling £4,800 over the course of the parliament.”

Speaking to the Mail about the Labour Party’s claim, a spokesperson for the Conservative Party said: “Rachel Reeves' dodgy dossier is full of complete nonsense and capped off with the extraordinary claim that it will cost the taxpayer £5.7billion to cut the civil service back to pandemic levels.”

The economy is just one thread of policies that are under intense scrutiny ahead of the general election where there will also be many questions over what the major parties will do on immigration. In their manifesto, the Conservative Party claimed they have a bold plan to deal with people crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to deport up to 100,000 people who cross the Channel illegally to other countries. In his speech unveiling the manifesto, Mr Sunak said: “We saw the other week, Keir Starmer simply can’t tell you what he would do with people who come here illegally because he doesn’t believe it’s a problem.

“Now, with Brexit we took control of our borders, but migration has been too high in recent years and we have a clear plan to reduce it.

“Last year we announced changes which mean 300,000 people who were previously eligible to come here now can’t, and we will introduce a migration cap that means Parliament, your elected representatives, will vote on how many people should be able to come here every year.”

To put the Tories’ goal into context, around 125,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats since 2018 and stopping those boats has been one of Mr Sunak’s main points of focus since he became Prime Minister.