Sunak suffers poll blow as levelling-up cash-for-votes row erupts

New poll gives Labour its biggest lead since Liz Truss meltdown as Tory towns' gain most from new funds

The Tory general election campaign hit more trouble on Saturday as Rishi Sunak faced accusations of using levelling up funds to win votes and Labour opened its biggest poll lead since the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss.

As Sunak tried to fire up his party's campaign before the first crucial TV debate with Keir Starmer on Tuesday, it emerged that more than half of the 30 towns each promised 20m of regeneration funding on Saturday were in constituencies won by Tory MPs at the last election.