Keir Starmer has blasted Boris Johnson for spouting "facist conspiracies" and "gaslighting the public" in a tense PMQs session.
Mr Starmer slammed the Prime Minister for repeatedly claiming the Tories are the party of "low taxes" at a time when he's "squeezing working people to the pips".
The Labour leader claimed he "can take" the false accusations of him failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile - which Mr Johnson said at the despatch box earlier this week.
But Mr Starmer insisted he will not accept it when the PM is making a mockery of the British public.
"The truth is the Conservatives are the party of high taxes because they're the party of high watering waste.
"We know this Prime Minister has no respect for honesty or decency. I can take it when it's aimed at me, but I won't accept it when it's aimed at the British public.
"Writing absurd articles about cutting taxes at a time when he's squeezing working people to the pips."
On Monday the PM lashed out at the Labour leader during a Commons debate on lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street, accusing him of failing to prosecute the notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile.
Mr Starmer led the Crown Prosecution Service when it decided not to prosecute Savile in 2009 due to insufficient evidence, a decision it later apologised for.
But the Full Fact website investigated in 2020 and found it had never actually been suggested that Sir Keir was personally involved in the decision.
Instead, the CPS said: “The reviewing lawyer at the time set out their own reasons for the decisions they took”.
Asked if the PM believed Keir Starmer had acted improperly over Jimmy Savile, the PM's press secretary said: "He was simply pointing out Sir Keir Starmer's record as leader.
"You've got what the PM said today which is that in 2013 Starmer apologised and took full responsibility for what happened on his watch and that was the right thing to do."
Asked if the PM got his information from conspiracy theorists, the press secretary said: "No... it is all entirely a matter of public record."
A Labour spokesman said: "If you're going to get into what the Prime Minister has chosen to do, which is further degrade public life by reaching into the dark recesses of the Internet to promote conspiracy theories, then, I would simply refer you to the response of a number of Tory MPs who have called this out as totally inappropriate."
Tensions were so high that Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was forced to warn MPs not to accuse Boris Johnson of lying, before PMQs even started.
After turfing SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford out of the Commons for doing just that, he said “I recognise there are frustrations”.
But he said: “There are means by which accusations of lying may be brought before the house, including by means of a substantive motion…
“Members may not accuse each other of lying or deliberately misleading the House unless such a substantive motion is under consideration.”
Otherwise, he said, debates risked “descending into fruitless cycles of accusation and counter-accusation”.
Mr Starmer branded the PM and the Chancellor as the "Tory Thelma and Louise, hand in hand as they drive the country off the cliff and into the abyss of low growth and high tax.”
In an apparent reference to Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, replied: “I think (Sir Keir) is Dick Dastardly and Muttley – both of them pulling in different directions, we know they have different views.”
He went on to insist the Government is “getting on with the job” as he defended his record in power.
The PM even repeated an "incorrect" claim about jobs, hours after the UK's statistics watchdog explicitly told him it was incorrect and begged him not to use it again.
The Prime Minister claimed there were "more people in work than before the pandemic began" in a fiery PMQs session today.
Only yesterday, the Office for Statistics Regulation wrote to Downing Street to complain about the claim.
Director General Ed Humpherson noted that the PM was referring to payroll employment from PAYE real-time information.
