Rishi Sunak hit back at billionaires John Caudwell and Sir Jim Ratcliffe after they abandoned the Tories for Labour ahead of the General Election.

The Prime Minister said the two senior business figures “can afford Labour’s tax rises”.

He told an LBC phone-in: “They are two of Britain’s richest men, they can probably afford Labour’s tax rises but for tens of millions of people who are working really hard, they can’t.”

Sir Jim, the co-owner of Manchester United who backed Brexit but criticised the Conservatives’ handling of it, said voters have “had enough” of the Tories.

He said in a Bloomberg interview: “The Conservatives now have had a fairly long stint and they’ve put forward a whole series of prime ministers that haven’t been terribly successful.

“Everybody in the UK now, you can see that the mood in the UK is ready for a change, they’ve had enough.

“I’ve met Keir Starmer a couple of times, I like Keir. I think he’ll do a very sensible job.”

Meanwhile, Phones4U founder John Caudwell said he will be voting for Labour and encouraged others to do the same.

He said: “Only five years ago, I donated half a million to the Conservatives to help avert the disaster that would have been Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.

“But I’ve been increasingly critical of Tory failures since then, particularly over Rishi’s mismanagement of the economy during Covid, Boris’ lowering of ethical standards and, of course, associated with that the accusation that Tory cronies benefited improperly regarding Covid PPE – and then the Liz Truss debacle.

“Over the last two years especially, I have been amazed by how Keir Starmer has transformed the Labour Party and brought it back from that Corbyn brink.

Mr Caudwell was one of the biggest donors to the Tories ahead of the 2019 general election, when he gave half a million pounds to Boris Johnson’s campaign.