A former winner at the TT has hit out at Labour’s proposed tax changes ahead of next month’s UK election.

Rob ’Bullet’ Barber, 36, of Bury, claimed he wasn’t ’in the top 50% of British earners’ when he was invited to ask a question on BBC One’s Question Time last night.

The rider won the 2009 XGP race at the TT and has had several podium finishes since it became the TT Zero race.

When chosen by host Fiona Bruce to ask a question of the panel in Bolton, he said ’I would like to call Labour out as liars’.

Mr Barber added: ’I am one of them people he will tax more and I am nowhere near in the top five so I am calling you a liar.

’That 5% is a lie, I am nowhere near that and you are going to tax me as an employee.

’You are not going after the billionaires, you’re going after the employees because it’s easy money and I have no choice because its PAYE (pay as you earn), I have no choice.’

The Daily Mirror online reported that during the discussion, Labour candidate Richard Burgon told the champion motorcyclist he was ’mistaken’.

Mr Burgon added: ’We are not going to raise income tax for anybody apart from the top 5% of earners.

But Mr Barber challenged this, saying ’but you are. Because I’ve read your policy’.

He added: ’It’s above £80,000. And I am nowhere near in the top 5%, let me tell you. I am not even in the top 50%.’

When quizzed by Fiona Bruce, Mr Barber clarified that he earned over £80,000 as an IT consultant, but ’was not in the top 5%’.

Labour’s election manifesto published yesterday advocted a new 45p tax rate for those earning over £80,000.

According to the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, an income of £75,300 places an earner in the top 5% in the UK.