To the wall

Liz Truss is being warned that she risks abandoning a winning coalition of voters in the “red wall” as she pursues “cavalier” tax cuts, amid revelations that her giveaway package disproportionately benefits traditional Conservative heartlands.

With huge nervousness among MPs over the £45bn ($48bn) taxcutting package announced last Friday, including abolition of the top rate tax band and the end of the bankers’ bonus cap, several Tories said they feared the prime minister has shifted away from the levelling up agenda that helped secure red wall seats from Labour in the Midlands and north of England.

Households in London and south-east England will gain three times as much as those in the north from tax cuts next year, according to the Resolution Foundation.