Ed Davey: Truss government is probably most rightwing in modern UK history

‘These are difficult times and you want calm, stable, evidence-based politics. And we’re not getting that,’ Davey said. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Liz Truss is leading perhaps the most rightwing government in modern British history, with an economic plan shaped by ideology rather than evidence, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has warned before this week’s mini-budget.

Davey, whose party’s annual conference was cancelled because it coincided with the Queen’s funeral, told the Guardian that Truss’s decision to style Friday’s announcement as a “fiscal event” rather than a budget seemed to be aimed at preventing the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) scrutinising its impact.