‘Don’t panic,’ says William Hague as Tory grandee clashes with Liz Truss on how to save party after elections rout [Video]

The Conservatives performed significantly worse than expected in the May 1 local elections, despite predictions they could lose around 500 seats.

“A pretty important one, not to do something in a panic to switch leaders again without knowing what an earth where you would go, to try to merge with the Reform party..,” he stressed.

“Be clear this is not a Trump-style Conservative party,” he added on Times Radio.

“Learn from what has just happened in Canada and in Australia where Conservative parties have just been hammered in elections that they thought they were going to win a few weeks ago because they have been depicted as being another version of Donald Trump.

“Then, the other one is make the economy centre stage.

“The Labour government is now doing some good things on the economy but it’s in a real muddle after it’s very disappointing Budget last year, increasing taxes …