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Police officers have accused Theresa May of telling a "downright lie" by claiming that their pay has risen 32%.

The Prime Minister was accused of "losing touch with reality" if she "ever had it" in a damning attack by the Police Federation, which represents 120,000 rank-and-file officers.

She made the eyebrow-raising claim today during a fierce clash with Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions.

Despite seven years of pay rises at 1% or less, she claimed a new police officer in 2010 would have actually gained £9,000 in once progression pay and the rise in the income tax personal allowance was factored in.

So even once inflation, now at 2.9%, was factored in, the rise in real-terms take-home pay was still worth 32%, she boldly claimed.

She credited a "calculation" without saying where it came from.

A Downing Street source later argued a typical police officer in 2010 was on £23,200 - adding "after tax and national insurance that's about £18,000".

The source insisted that figure had now risen to £27,500, "which is 32% in real terms.”

But Calum Macleod, the vice chair of the Police Federation, said they were wrong.

"The government stating that police officers have had a 32% pay rise since 2010 is a joke – and is in fact a downright lie,” he said.

"It shows they have lost touch with reality, if they ever had it, and are clueless as to the demands and dangers officers have to face on a daily basis to keep communities safe.

"Officers are struggling to keep their heads above water and all we are asking for is fair recognition."

Labour MP John Woodcock immediately expressed outrage over her claims, branding the prime minister "shockingly out of touch".

The PM's comments came as she clashed with Jeremy Corbyn over pay and jobs during Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.

The Labour leader said public sector pay would see real terms wages fall despite the end of the 1% pay cap.

The seven-year cap is to be scrapped from next year, with ministers given "flexibility" to breach the long-standing limit of 1% on rises.

The first professions to benefit will be prison officers and police officers, with cops getting a one-off 1% bonus on top of their 1% rise in 2017/18.

Mr Corbyn accused the government of making "dedicated" public servants "worse off every year for the past seven years".

He told MPs that inflation was at 2.9% and that a below-inflation pay increase to be funded from existing budgets would not feel like a pay rise to hard-pressed workers.

He asked for a guarantee from the prime minister that no-one working for the prison service or police would lose their jobs in order to pay for the increase - but she pointedly refused.

He said in a statement: “For Theresa May to claim police officers have enjoyed bumper pay rises under the Tories shows just how divorced the Prime Minister and her government are from reality and from the lives of our hard-working public service workers.

“In the last few days the government’s position on the public sector pay cap has changed so many times it is hard to keep up and impossible to trust a word the Conservatives say on the issue.

“Labour totally rejects the Tories’ attempt to divide and rule public sector workers and a Labour government would end the pay cap for all workers and give them all the pay rises they desperately need and deserve."