Liz Truss slams Rishi Sunak for 'trashing my record' in office and claims her successor's errors were the reason Conservative candidates 'paid the electoral price' in Tory wipeout

Liz Truss has slammed Rishi Sunak for 'trashing my record' in office and claimed Conservative candidates have 'paid the electoral price' for his errors in a Tory wipeout.

The former Prime Minister, who lasted just 49 days in office, argued that her successor ditched the principles of the party and the British people would suffer over the next five years as a result.

Last week, Ms Truss lost her South West Norfolk seat to Labour's Terry Jermy by 630 votes in what was one of the most dramatic moments on an election night that saw Sir Keir Starmer's party secure a landslide victory.

The ex-Tory leader, who had represented the seat since 2010, became one of 251 Conservative MPs to be removed in a disastrous election for the party and the first former Prime Minister since Labour's Ramsay MacDonald in 1935 to do so.

Now Ms Truss has broken her silence after the 'devastating' result which saw the Conservatives' representation in the House of Commons collapse to just 121 MPs.

She told The Telegraph Mr Sunak had claimed cutting taxes did not fuel growth in a short-term bid to secure votes at the 2022 Tory leadership campaign.

She said: 'This abandonment of Conservative principles not only led to him getting no credit from the voters for cutting National Insurance, but also led to an even larger general election defeat as he continued to trash my record and promote Labour's false narrative that the global rise in mortgage rates was somehow my fault.'

The ex-Prime Minister revealed she had not spoken out during the general election period in fear of hindering the party's campaign but that the time had now come to intervene.

Ms Truss insisted she had attempted to take on the status quo - which she described as 'Blairite economic orthodoxy' - with her short-lived, tax-cutting agenda. 

She claimed that the gambling scandal which engulfed the Tories mid-campaign had contributed to a lack of enthusiasm on the doorstep, as had Mr Sunak 'repeating the mantra of stop the boats while presiding over record immigration'.

The former Tory leader also said her Conservative predecessors as prime minister did not do enough to push back against a 'Leftist agenda', including on issues like net zero and gender self-identification.

She was the only one, she claimed, who sought to act differently.

The former Prime Minister added that Labour would not be re-elected in five years time as they had no plan to tackle Whitehall 'bureaucracy' or cut taxes.

It comes after Ms Truss led a parade of Tory big hitters who sensationally lost her seat in the Tory election bloodbath.

Terry Jermy overturned a 26,195 majority won by Ms Truss in 2019 after Reform and an independent campaign by the 'Turnip Taliban' - a group of local disgruntled ex-Tories - whittled down her support.

On a humiliating night for Rishi Sunak's party, some of the Conservatives' biggest names - including a record number of frontbenchers - lost their seats as Labour stormed to an historic landslide win. 

Jacob Rees-Mogg lost his Somerset North East & Hanham seat to Labour's Dan Norris by more than 5,000 votes. In a polite speech afterwards he congratulated Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on 'what seems to be a historic victory'.

Meanwhile, a glum-looking Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suffered a 'Portillo Moment' as he was defeated by Labour in Welwyn Hatfield by around 3,000 votes.

A 'Portillo' moment is a reference to Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo who lost what had been regarded as a safe Tory seat in Labour's 1997 landslide.

And Penny Mordaunt lost her Commons seat despite having been tipped as a potential future Tory leader as the party tries to regroup from a long-expected electoral pummelling.