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Theresa May today challenged Jeremy Corbyn to apologise for "misleading young people" over a pledge to wipe out student debt.

It's been a frequent Tory attack line in recent days, after Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner both said such an idea was a goal, not a promise.

Tory backbencher Bob Blackman raised the issue at the final Prime Minister's Questions before the summer break.

He asked the Prime Minister: "Can she think of anyone who should apologise for misleading the British public?"

The PM replied: "I think it’s very important as people are thinking about going to university that they are not misled in any way.

She added: “At the election the Labour party vowed to deal with student debt. Labour were going to abolish student debt, now they say it wasn’t a promise at all.

“Students know Labour can’t be trusted on student fees.”

The thing is, Jeremy Corbyn never "vowed" to "abolish student debt".

What the Prime Minister said was untrue and, in itself, misleading.

Indeed, in a later debate on tuition fees, Angela Rayner accused Tory frontbenchers of "wilfully misrepresenting" her party's policy.

She said Labour has "no plans" to write off existing student debt, adding: "We never promised to do so." And she's right.

Here's why.

Did Jeremy Corbyn really promise to wipe out student debt?

No.

He's promised to scrap tuition fees for all new students - it was in their election manifesto and was costed at a whopping £11 billion.

Here's what Mr Corbyn said in an interview with the NME ahead of the election (with our our emphasis).

“First of all, we want to get rid of student fees altogether. We’ll do it as soon as we get in, and we’ll then introduce legislation to ensure that any student going from the 2017-18 academic year will not pay fees. They will pay them, but we’ll rebate them when we’ve got the legislation through – that’s fundamentally the principle behind it. Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off , or some other means of reducing that debt burden. “I don’t have the simple answer for it at this stage – I don’t think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly; we had two weeks to prepare all of this – but I’m very well aware of that problem. And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it.”

So all he said was that he was looking at ways to make it easier for people to deal with the debt. That's not the same as promising to wipe it out, is it?

No, it's not the same at all. It's a goal. A broad target.

So when Angela Rayner and John McDonnell said it was a goal, was that a u-turn?

Nope. It would be a u-turn if Corbyn had promised to wipe out tuition fee debt, but he hasn't.

So what Theresa May is really saying is that young people can't tell the difference between a promise and a goal?

That's right.

poll loading Should Theresa May give young people more credit? 1000+ VOTES SO FAR Yes, they can tell the difference between a promise and a goal No, it's perfectly fine to conflate the two

While we're at it, here's a list of just some the things Theresa May promised to do in her election manifesto that she's been forced to walk back on