Anger as PM takes aim at the 'anti-growth coalition'

Liz Truss has sparked a furious backlash after blaming the UK's economic woes on a supposed "anti-growth coalition" of opposition parties, trade unions, think tanks, environmentalists and opponents of Brexit.

- ANDREW WOODCOCK, ADAM FORREST, KATE DEVLIN

Countryside campaigners the CPRE said the prime minister's "disingenuous and misleading" broadside presented a "false choice between the economy and the environment", ignoring real concerns over the threat posed to rural communities by fracking and the loosening of planning regulations.

Ms Truss's comments, in a keynote address to her first Conservative conference as PM, were also branded "Orwellian" by Tory former cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell, who said the hit to growth came from Brexit itself, and not those who opposed it.

One minister in Boris Johnson's government said of Ms Truss's claim of an "anti-growth coalition": "The obvious question is how many Conservatives does she think are in it?"

In a speech concluding a chaotic conference of U-turns and split, the PM promised to "get Britain moving" with a bonfire of red tape and regulations to be unveiled by ministers over the coming weeks.

She named her top three priorities as "growth, growth, growth", apparently unaware that the same aspiration had been declared by Sir Keir Starmer in July.

But critics were quick to point out that Tory administrations were in charge during the years of sluggish economic performance which she tried to blame on "anti-growth" forces.

Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Ms Truss was "at the heart of building a Conservative economy that has led to the flat wages and low growth she highlighted today".

And TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady told The Independent: "Liz Truss has some brass neck.