Labour’s deputy leader has accused the Conservatives of being “hell bent on viciously attacking Jeremy Corbyn” as Theresa May’s party relaunches its campaign with a focus on leadership and Brexit.

On the eve of the first major election television programme featuring the Tory and Labour leaders, Tom Watson accused the prime minister of a “contempt for voters” by refusing to take part in a proper head-to-head debate.

Instead, May and Corbyn will be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and then questioned by audience members separately in a Sky News and Channel 4 event that comes amid increasingly heated clashes between the two biggest parties.



“The more they avoid exposing the deficiencies of Theresa May to public scrutiny, the more people are beginning to realise that she’s not up to the job,” Watson said. “You’ve only got to look at her handling of the dementia tax issue to know what a poor negotiator she is.”

A senior Tory source hit back at Watson by claiming that Corbyn had refused to take questions in LBC and Facebook events, unlike the prime minister.

Meanwhile, sources said that reports of division at the top of the Conservative party over the troubled social care plans were correct, with tensions developing between May’s closest advisers Nick Timothy – who was a key author of the manifesto – and Fiona Hill.

Hill and the party’s chief strategist Sir Lynton Crosby were apparently against backing the policy, which became dubbed the “dementia tax” and resulted in an embarrassing U-turn.

There has reportedly been a fall out between May’s closest advisers Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Now Crosby is said to be demanding message discipline, with Brexit taking centre stage in the campaign as the party reminds voters that EU talks could begin just 11 days after the election result.

The prime minister – as well as chosen cabinet ministers Amber Rudd, David Davis and Boris Johnson – will be repeating the suggestion that the choice on 8 June is whether it is May or Corbyn who takes a seat at the negotiating table. The strategy has already led to an intensification of personal attacks against the Labour leader, with defence secretary Michael Fallon calling him “soft on terrorism” while Rudd claimed that the risk of terror attacks would rise under his premiership.

Corbyn is also battling against accusations about previous meetings with members of the IRA, voting against terrorism legislation and of blaming the west for terrorist atrocities – including from May herself.

He hit back on ITV’s Peston on Sunday by claiming that “cuts in police numbers have led to some very dangerous situations emerging”.

Further pressure came on Corbyn in reports that he had attended a wreath-laying to honour a Palestinian terrorist involved in the Munich massacre. The Labour leader has written about paying tribute to victims of a Mossad assassination that took place in Paris in 1991. However, reports suggested he was in fact attending the grave of Atef Bseiso, the Palestine Liberation Organisation head of intelligence, who was killed in France in 1992 and who was believed to have been involved in the Munich atrocity in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in 1972.

Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “In light of today’s news reports, it is high time that Jeremy Corbyn clarify his views regarding Palestinian terrorism. At first sight, attending a wreath-laying ceremony for a known terrorist, who led one of the most notorious acts of international terrorism, the attack on the Munich Olympics, would appear to be beyond the pale.”

Jennifer Gerber, director of Labour Friends of Israel, told the Daily Telegraph: “It is almost unbelievable that any Labour MP would participate in a ceremony honouring a man involved in the vicious murder of innocent Israeli athletes.”

Meanwhile, the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, faced criticism after defending her previous political views about the Troubles in Northern Ireland by saying that she also had an afro haircut at the time. “It was 34 years ago – the hairstyle has gone and some of the views have gone,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. “We have all moved on.”

Former Labour MP, Gisela Stuart, who chaired the Vote Leave campaign, said the Tories were not saying anything “staggeringly new” but it was the “brutality with which they are expressing it” that had shifted the tone of the debate.

Some have claimed that negative campaigning could backfire after it failed to work for the remain campaign in last year’s EU referendum. However, Stuart argued that the impact could be to motivate Tory voters to turn out on 8 June and discourage some Labour backers – and argued that such campaigns could cut through.

“During the referendum, ‘project fear’ did work,” she said, arguing that while the remain campaign did not win, up to 20% of people had voted to stay in the EU because of fear.

“Why did you have 4% margin on the day, but now you look and now it is below 25% that want to stay in the EU? Project fear turned people into reluctant remainers.”

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have upped the pressure on the Tory’s social care plans after a backlash over a new means test for the winter fuel allowance and plans to include people’s properties when assessing how much they will pay for social care at home.

May has since promised to introduce a cap on care costs, in a U-turn on the original policy, but she and other cabinet ministers have refused to set a level before the general election.

The former Liberal Democrat minister and now health spokesman Norman Lamb said the Tories were taking people for granted with a “cruel and not properly thought through” policy.

Meanwhile, Labour are preparing for Monday night’s election programme by demanding the Tories answer six questions on topics including the level of the social care cap, which pensioners will lose the winter fuel allowance, and whether the party will rule out raising tax for the vast majority of people.

The Guardian understands that Labour and the Tories could not agree over whether May or Corbyn would go first in the programme. Sources said that a senior aide from each party agreed to meet Sky News’s head of politics, Esme Wren, at midday on Thursday at a neutral territory in Westminster to toss a coin.

Labour won and chose for Corbyn to go first – with 22 minutes of audience questions chaired by Sky’s political editor, Faisal Islam, starting at 8.30pm, followed by an 18-minute interrogation by Paxman. May is likely to begin her session at 9.15pm, with the pair unlikely to actually meet as they will kept apart in separate green rooms.