A former Tory minister has branded Liz Truss “delusional” in an outspoken attack.
Conor Burns said the former prime minister’s record in office had been “a millstone around our neck” during the election campaign.
The former Northern Ireland minister was one of dozens of Conservatives, including Truss herself, who lost their seats on July 4.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Truss blamed Rishi Sunak “trashing my record” for the party’s devastating loss, which saw it reduced to just 121 seats as Labour won a landslide.
But on LBC this morning, Burns said “I don’t think we ever recovered from the Truss debacle. [Rishi Sunak] rang me, as I think he rang most former MPs, to apologise.
“I said to him ‘what are you apologising for? You were dealt a hospital pass here’.
“Truss’ inability to shut up dogged us. I did something like 35 house meetings during the campaign. In every single one of those, she came up.
“The body blow to economic credibility, to the perception of us being competent, was dealt a body blow by Liz Truss. The biggest gift to whoever leads the Conservative Party in the years ahead is that she is no longer in parliament.
“The electorate began the Conservative recovery in a very real way by ejecting her in Norfolk last week.”
Asked about Truss’ comments in the Sunday Telegraph, the former Bournemouth West MP said: “I think it’s delusional and it’s time to call it out for what it is. I don’t think she’s actually well and I think those who are close to her are letting her down by not telling her the truth. She is preposterous. She is toxic. She needs to be quiet.
“This lunatic lie that it was the conspiracies, it was the deep state, it was the Treasury, it was the Office for Budget Responsibility, it was gnomes at the bottom of the garden. It was incompetence and Liz Truss was the longest, continuous serving minister since 2010, and her record across a whole range of things was pretty mediocre.
“She made a lot of fuss recently about the gender debate and conversion therapy and so on. She did bugger all about that when she was equalities minister.
“She is now irrelevant and should be treated by the Conservative Party as such. Her record was the millstone around our neck.”