I’d have done better than Sunak in election, says Liz Truss

“If the mini-budget had been allowed to succeed” then voters would have looked more kindly on the Conservatives, she argued, but it was “difficult” to get the changes she wanted through without the support of Tory MPs.

The former prime minister said she would not endorse any of the four contenders vying for the Tory leadership – Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly.

“So far I haven’t seen any of the candidates really acknowledge how bad things are in the country as a whole and frankly for the Conservative Party.

“I think there’s a bit of Panglossian [thinking that] all we need to do is unite, all we need to do is show competence and we’ll be ushered back into office”.

She urged candidates to think more radically about policies like expanding fracking and coal power, and abolishing the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act, arguing that Britain was now a “socialist country”, thanks in part to previous Conservative governments.

The packed auditorium listened largely in silence, but broke into applause and cheering when Truss said a Donald Trump victory in the US elections “would really cheer me up”.

She was quizzed by The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley about how she managed to keep going in the face of rejection by voters, attacks from critics and ridicule by comedians.

She denied lacking a sense of humour, but said jokes about her from “left wing” comics were “just not funny” as they were “in power” as part of the liberal establishment she was fighting against.

Explaining that she was on a mission to save “not just Britain but Western civilization”, she added: “I enjoy the fight.”

Did she ever feel like throwing the towel in and doing whatever makes her happy? she was asked.

“This is what I do to be happy,” she told the crowd.