British Secretary of Defense Michael Fallon has denied media reports about deepening divisions in Prime Minister Theresa May’s team ahead of the June 8 general election.
"You know this is Westminster tittle-tattle," Fallon told ITV news, in response to a report by The Sunday Times.
The report claimed that the Tory campaign's joint chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, were at loggerheads over an unpopular tax policy that May was forced to retract after facing widespread backlash.
Under the so-called “dementia tax” policy, which was introduced in the Tory manifesto last Thursday, people would pay for taking care of older people at their own home unless they have assets of less than £100,000 including the value of their house.
The pledge created widespread concerns among many families, who said that they could lose their homes to pay their social care costs later in life.
May made a reversal on Monday and withdrew the policy and blamed the negative press on “fake claims” by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“Since my manifesto was published, the proposals have been subject to fake claims made by Jeremy Corbyn. The only things he has left to offer in this campaign are fake claims, fear and scaremongering,” the prime minister said as she launched the Welsh Tory manifesto in the predominantly Labour territory.
She also tried to hold a straight face about the social care retreat by saying that there would be “an absolute limit” on the amount that people must pay.
Labour has made the most of the disarray in the Tory campaign, dramatically reducing the support gap in polls.
A YouGov poll commissioned by The Times newspaper showed on Friday that Corbyn’s party was trailing the ruling Conservative Party 38 - 43 percent, cutting down an initially large gap between the two parties to only five percent.
In mid-April, May called for the snap election in an effort to reinforce her negotiation position on Britain's exit from the European Union and also win a greater majority in the Parliament.