Conservative Party chair Jake Berry has criticised recent comments made by former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, which targeted prime minister Liz Truss.
Dorries, who was an ally of Truss in the Tory leadership contest, has accused the PM of making "big mistakes" during her short time in office so far and called on her to change course or face defeat at the next general election.
She told the Times that Truss was culpable of “lurching to the right and deserting the centre ground for [Labour leader, Sir] Keir Starmer to place his flag on.”
Dorries added: “If we continue down this path, we absolutely will be facing a Stephen Harper-type wipeout. I'm sure [Truss] listened and will stop and rethink.”
Dorries was referring to Stephen Harper’s landslide defeat in the 2015 Canadian elections to Justin Trudeau.
The ex-culture secretary also opposed Truss’ decision to sideline some of the policies set out by predecessor, Boris Johnson, including the BBC licence fee review, privatising Channel 4, bringing through the Online Safety Bill and introducing new animal welfare legislation.
“That was our mandate, our deal with the voters,” Dorries said.
“Removing a prime minister and the policies people voted for less than three years ago is a troubling precedent to set in a democracy.”
However, Berry has since said in an LBC interview that he took issue with some of Dorries' comments.
He said: “I've seen some of the comments by Nadine [Dorries], I don't understand some of them and some of them I don't agree with.
“I am quite good friends with Nadine and I think she's a very fine individual and a very fine Conservative, but quite a lot of what we have done hasn't been just about cutting people's taxes - though of course people are getting the cut in income tax. Quite a lot of it is action on energy bills.”
Berry also admitted personal regret after facing criticism of his own, following his suggestion last week that Brits could get better-paid jobs to alleviate their cost-of-living woes.
Berry said that he'd been guilty of using "clumsy" language in articulating his point of view.
Dorries’ comments and the ensuing criticism have come during a week where the Conservative Party Conference has been dominated by in-fighting around the Truss government’s policies.
The government has already been pressured into U-turning on its plan to scrap the top band of income tax. Meanwhile, other senior Tories have publicly suggested that ministers should increase Universal Credit in line with inflation rather than wages, with government yet to decide on the issue.
Dorries has found herself among the pressure group, saying that not increasing benefits in line with inflation would be “cruel, unjust and fundamentally unconservative” in the current climate.
