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Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has thrown down the gauntlet - demanding a live TV debate with Tory rival Philip Hammond.

McDonnell challenged the Chancellor to a debate - anytime, anywhere.

During a speech in Lincoln he said: “Philip Hammond has fallen out with Theresa May so he might not be around long anyway.

“But I’m challenging him to a televised debate if he’s still there.

“He’s talking rubbish about our manifesto and our costings.

“If he’s confident about his figures he should come and debate them with me.”

(Image: BBC)

It follows Hammond’s car-crash interview this morning, where tried to attack Labour’s manifesto, but got in a muddled over the figures.

He got the cost of the HS2 rail project wrong by £20 billion.

And he claimed Labour had a £58 billion hole in their costings - but got to that figure by conflating current spending and capital spending.

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Current spending is the day-to-day expenses of the country, which need to be covered by taxation or other ongoing income.

Capital spending is one off costs, like buildings and the initial costs of nationalisation. Because they don’t have ongoing costs, they don’t increase the deficit, but they do increase the overall national debt.

BBC Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys noted that even Hammond doesn't combine the two figures when making his financial statements.

But Hammond said even the one off costs have to be paid for "either through taxation, or through borrowing."

Later, Theresa May failed to say whether Hammond would stay on as Chancellor after the election.

Asked to confirm if he would still be her neighbour at No11 Downing Street, the PM said: "We are focussed on June the 8th."

Ms May said she was "very happy" to "endorse" Mr Hammond but shied away from saying she would keep him in post.

She added: "We’ve worked together over the years for many years, longer than we could care to identify. That’s an age-related comment, nothing else, just in case you try and relate anything into that."