Rishi Sunak backer says Liz Truss’ tax plans are ‘suicide’ in war over cost of living

Liz Truss’s leadership campaign reacted with fury last night after a high-profile Rishi Sunak supporter said her economic plans amounted to an ‘electoral suicide note’.

Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, dramatically escalated the war of words between the two camps with a blast at Miss Truss’s plans for emergency tax cuts in September.

He said her strategy for dealing with inflation and the cost of living crunch risked casting the Tories into the ‘impotent oblivion of opposition’.

But Miss Truss’s campaign hit back, saying Mr Sunak appeared to be running on a ‘Labour economic ticket’ that would lead Britain into a recession.

A campaign source said: ‘The suicide note here is Rishi’s high taxes and his failed economic policy that he’s peddled for the past two-and-a-half years when he was chancellor.

Liz Truss’s leadership campaign reacted with fury last night after a high-profile Rishi Sunak supporter said her economic plans amounted to an ‘electoral suicide note’

 The row came as Mr Sunak pledged billions more to help households with energy bills

MP Dominic Raab looks at Conservative leadership candidate Rishi Sunak during an event, part of the Conservative party leadership campaign, in Eastbourne on August 5. The deputy prime minister has dramatically escalated the war of words between the two Conservative leadership contenders’ camps with a blast at Miss Truss’s plans for emergency tax cuts in September

‘He’s fighting this campaign on a Labour economic ticket. It’s not what the country needs or what Conservative members want. Rishi is the pied piper leading us to a recession with New Labour-lite economic policies. Liz has a truly Conservative plan to get our economy growing and put more money in people’s pockets.’

The row came as Mr Sunak pledged billions more to help households with energy bills.

He said that if he became prime minister, he would extend the package of support he announced earlier this year, which gave every household £400 off their energy bills, while those on means-tested benefits received a further £650.

‘People need proven methods that will deliver for them quickly. So I will use the framework I created to provide further support and give millions of people the peace of mind they desperately need ahead of the winter,’ the former chancellor said.

Mr Sunak said: ‘In order to keep any one-off borrowing to an absolute minimum I will first seek efficiency savings across Whitehall to provide direct support for families to help with the unprecedented situation we face.’ But a Truss campaign source said Mr Sunak had ‘changed his position on cost of living two or three times in the space of a few weeks’.

‘Three weeks ago he was saying more borrowing was irresponsible and inflationary.

‘Has he changed his mind? It’s a mammoth strategic U-turn.’

Miss Truss last night received a fresh boost as a poll suggested only she can beat Sir Keir Starmer. When asked who would be better as PM, the survey conducted by Redfield and Wilton found 38 per cent said Miss Truss, against 35 per cent for Sir Keir. Mr Sunak scored 34 per cent, compared to 40 per cent for the Labour leader.

It came as Downing Street rejected a call by former prime minister Gordon Brown for Boris Johnson to summon a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee to address the cost of living crunch.

The PM’s spokesman said Mr Johnson would speak to Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi to ensure that support measures due to come into effect later in the year were on track. But the spokesman said further measures would be a matter for the next prime minister.