The proposal drew fierce cross-party criticism, including from Tories representing constituencies in the north and midlands, forcing the foreign secretary to abandon the policy just 12 hours after it was launched. Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor, hopes his self-inflicted mistake could halt Trudeau’s momentum in the contest to become Britain’s next prime minister as Tory MPs begin to receive their ballots. “It’s just not a serious proposition in terms of understanding public finances,” said a former minister who supports the Sunak campaign. “That’s a sign of overconfidence.” But a YouGov poll of Tory party members for The Times, conducted before the policy retreat, showed the Foreign Secretary had extended her lead over Sunak in the Tory leadership race to 34 points. The poll for The Times and Times Radio found that 60% of party members would vote for the foreign secretary to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, compared to 26% for Sunak. Nine out of 10 said they had already made up their minds. Sunak claimed the Truss plan for regional pay settlements, adjusted for local living costs, would leave millions of nurses, police and soldiers an average of £1,500 a year worse off. Truss’ team insisted the policy had been “deliberately misrepresented” – even though it had issued a press release which explicitly said £8.8bn could be saved if the policy was applied to all 5.7 million public sector workers. Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of Teesside, said this could be seen as Truss’ “fiscal moment of dementia”, a reference to Theresa May’s launch of a social care funding plan in 2017. Houchen, who supports Sunak, said the idea of ​​lower pay for public sector workers in areas such as the North and Midlands — set by new regional pay boards — left him almost “speechless”. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said Truss’s proposal would “drive down northern wages”, adding: “This unknown government’s commitment to raise is dead”. After a morning of growing alarm from Truss supporters, particularly those living outside London and the South East, the Foreign Secretary opted to abruptly end the policy just after midday to limit the damage. “I’m concerned that people were unnecessarily worried about my policies,” Truss said. “Therefore, I am clear that the regional pay boards will not proceed.” Truss, a free market Tory, had argued that public sector pay should be set in line with the local cost of living. He said this would stop the “crowding out” of the private sector, which could not afford to match government wages. The policy, part of a wider “war on Whitehall waste”, was inspired by the right-wing TaxPayers’ Alliance think tank.

The episode illustrates a wider risk for Truss, who won the support of the Conservative right by promising a series of radical proposals, including big tax cuts and a drive to shrink the state. He points to the potential political consequences if Truss becomes prime minister and starts implementing these policies, particularly in the “red wall” seats in the north of England. While such policies play well with some Tory members, who live largely in the south, and earn positive headlines in the right-wing press, they risk alienating the party’s northern voters. Boris Johnson’s promise to “upgrade” Britain carried an implicit promise of more government spending in the North, not lower public wages and cuts in public spending. A Truss campaign spokesman said: “Our hard-working frontline staff are the bedrock of society and there will be no proposal for regional pay boards for civil servants or public sector workers.”