Fiddling Tories were caught picking and choosing official statistics yesterday in a bid to dupe the public into believing that pay is on the up.

Downing Street faced a torrent of criticism after trying to dispel Labour's cost-of-living-crisis claims with dodgy figures showing that all but the top 10 per cent of earners had seen a real-terms increase in 2012/13.

It claimed that working families' pay rose a third faster than inflation of 2.4 per cent in the year up to April 2014.