Former minister calls Truss’s plans ‘cruel’ and warns over ‘lurch to the right’

Liz Truss will lead the Conservatives to a landslide defeat at the next general election if she does not curb her radical agenda, a former Tory cabinet minister has warned.

Nadine Dorries, a close ally of Boris Johnson, said the new prime minister was “lurching to the right” and was making a “mistake” by reversing the policies of her predecessor without a mandate.

In comments to The Times, the former culture secretary accused the prime minister of being “cruel” and unconservative by planning to hold back benefit increases at a time when people were struggling to cope with the cost of living.

The prime minister used her speech on the last day of the Tory conference to lash out at what she called an “anti-growth coalition”, which one former minister suggested could include members of her own party.

She also reiterated her plans to push ahead with tax cuts in a widely derided dash for growth – despite bowing to market pressure to reverse a planned scrapping of the top income tax rate.

Ms Dorries, who backed Ms Truss, previously suggested the prime minister go to the country if she wants a mandate for her tax-cutting, high-borrowing agenda. Though she said Ms Truss is not calling for an immediate election because “we’d absolutely lose it”.

On Wednesday, she told The Times: “I understand that we need to rocket-booster growth, but you don’t do that by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You don’t win elections by lurching to the right and deserting the centre ground for Keir Starmer to place his flag on.”

Ms Truss’s popularity hit a new low during conference: she is now rated lower than Mr Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn ever were. Ms Dorries said the Tories faced a defeat comparable to that of their Canadian counterparts in 2015, when incumbent Stephen Harper lost to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals after his party had been in office for a decade.

“If we continue down this path, we absolutely will be facing a Stephen Harper-type wipeout. I’m sure she’s listened and will stop and rethink,” she said.

The Conservative conference was beset by internal rows over policy and signs of another cabinet rift emerged over a floated plan to abandon a double-digit increase in benefits which Truss allies argue would be unfair as workers were seeing smaller pay increases.

Ms Dorries said Ms Truss was “very aware she has made some big mistakes over the past few weeks” as she urged her to rethink her departure from Mr Johnson’s policies. “It wasn’t her mistake that Conservative MPs removed Boris Johnson. But to remove his policies as well is a mistake.

“That was our mandate, our deal with the voters. Removing a prime minister and the policies people voted for less than three years ago is a troubling precedent to set in a democracy,” she said.