A SOUTHPORT builder who was tagged the Tories’ version of “Joe the Plumber” was last night at the centre of a major political row.

Shane Prescott starred in the Conservative party broadcast on Thursday, claiming his business had struggled because of the recession.

But Companies House records show the 51-year-old father-of-four’s loft conversion firm actually went into liquidation at the height of the boom in 2006.

It is believed when his business went into liquidation he owed £240,000 to creditors and £174,000 to Revenue and Customs.

He was used in a political video by the Conservatives as the epitome of a Britain betrayed by Gordon Brown and was seen as the British equivalent of Joe the Plumber, who challenged Barack Obama at a campaign rally and became the symbol of recession-hit America.

But the revelations about Mr Prescott’s finances also echo the loss of credibility suffered by Joseph Wurzelbacher – allegedly unlicensed.

The Churchtown man claimed his business Prescott Building Contractors had been forced to make redundancies and he told of his fears for the future.