The Tories and Labor have clashed over Keir Starmer’s tax and spending plans as the election campaign grew increasingly bitter.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Sir Keir would turn Britain into what he called “taxtopia”, while Labor accused the Tories of being “desperate” and having “huge holes” in their own plans.

Meanwhile, opinion polls continued to increase pressure on Rishi Sunak and underlined why the Tories have changed their strategy to warn would-be British voters not to risk handing Labor a landslide victory.

The Prime Minister revealed that his faith helped him through the tough election campaign.

“In Hinduism there is a concept of duty called dharma, which roughly translates as doing your duty and not focusing on its outcomes,” he told the Sunday Times.

“And you do (your duty) because it is the right thing to do, and you must detach yourself from the outcome of it.”

The Tory focus on tax came after Sir Keir ruled out capital gains tax being charged on the sale of family homes.

But the Conservatives have now demanded he rule out a raft of other potential tax measures that they claim would be needed to fill a “£38.5 billion black hole” in Labour’s plans.

Mr Hunt told the Sun on Sunday: “On tax, yes, we have increased it. But we have started cutting tax with a fourp cut on national insurance.”

‘That is a tax cut for working people and we want to go further in the next parliament.

“Compare that to taxtopia. Taxtopia is what we will get under a Labor government.”

The Tories have drawn up a list of 17 possible tax increases that Labor could implement, but Sir Keir’s party said they would refuse to fall into the Conservative trap of responding to every claim.

A Labor spokesman said: “This desperate Tory party is now being reduced every day to coming up with a new Labor plan that doesn’t exist.”

“We will not be commenting on any fantasy plans the Tories come up with for the next two weeks,” the spokesperson said.

“They would be better off if they remembered that they were intended as an antidote to Liz Truss and that in the end they were nothing more than the final part of her disastrous approach.”

Meanwhile, the Tory’s very public inquiry into how to respond to potential electoral defeat and the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK continues.

The Conservatives’ strategy was to warn potential reform voters that they risk denying the Tories seats, which would result in a large majority for Labour.

Farage predicted that the divisions between the Tories would become clearer. He told the Telegraph: “You will see those MPs, with whom I agree on most things, becoming much more vocal about their position than the party’s.”

“The divisions will become even worse. And I will say to them: ‘Sorry guys, you’re just in the wrong party’.”

The scale of the challenge facing the Conservatives was underlined by two separate polls.

Analysis and modeling by Survation put Labor on course for a 262-seat majority, with the Tories reduced to just 72 MPs and Reform potentially capturing seven seats.

Survation, which surveyed 42,269 people between May 31 and June 13, put the Liberal Democrats on 56 seats and the SNP on 37.

A poll on Savanta’s voting intentions also contained bad news for Sunak, with a warning that the Tories could face “electoral extinction”.

The Savanta survey for the Sunday Telegraph gave Labor a 25 point lead, with Sir Keir Starmer’s party on 46 percent, up two on last week, and the Tories on 21 percent, down four points.