Former Home Secretary Priti Patel is set to fire a warning shot at Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng today as the PM tries to hold her fractured party together.
Ms Patel is expected to tell a conference meeting later that the Tories will "live or die" by its economic credibility - after nearly two weeks of chaos following the mini-budget and a screeching U-turn on tax cuts for the rich.
The ex-Cabinet minister, who quit before her expected sacking last month, will accuse Ms Truss and Ms Kwarteng of "spending today with no thought of tomorrow".
She will also say the party needs to "regain" its credibility.
The right-winger will also tell the leadership there needs to be a "ceiling" on the amount spent on public services, saying there is a limit to "the amount we can afford".
Ms Patel is set to address a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham today, her first major intervention since leaving office.
She will say, according to The Times : “We are spending today with no thought of tomorrow, and like the Blob in the old horror film, the more resources are absorbed today, the bigger the problem gets and the more resources it will need to eat up tomorrow.
“Right now, we have got into a pattern of borrowing huge amounts to fix today’s urgent problems or generate short-term populist headlines."
Ms Patel is claimed to be furious that MPs were "blindsided" by the mini-budget, and a lack of accountability over
She will say that while she welcomes taxes coming down, the government must take a lead from Margaret Thatcher and ensure spending and debt are sustainable.
"Otherwise interest rate rises, inflation and instability may mean that the growth never arrives, debt balloons further and taxes go back up," she is expected to say.
The Prime Minister is looking at cancelling the vow to raise welfare by inflation of about 10% next April, instead using earnings growth of just over 5%.
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will bring forward the date of his November 23 plan to cut debt and spending, to as soon as this month.
But even serving minister Penny Mordaunt, who sits in Cabinet, sent a warning shot to the PM. The Commons Leader told Times Radio: “We are not about trying to help people with one hand and take it away with another.”
She added: "I have always supported, whether it's pensions, whether it's our welfare system, keeping pace with inflation. It makes sense to do so. That's what I voted for before and so have a lot of my colleagues."
A leading ‘One Nation’ Tory warned Liz Truss would “probably not” not get benefit cuts through Parliament - and will need another humiliating U-turn.
Damian Green, a former deputy PM and Work and Pensions Secretary, told the BBC : “If people are already struggling and many of these people will be, then making them struggle more is not a sensible response to the problems.”
