‘Negative budgets’: cost of living crisis could lose the Tories dozens of seats

Citizens Advice says that about 5 million people are affected by negative budgets. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Rishi Sunak has been warned that scores of his most vulnerable seats risk being lost over an increasingly neglected cost of living crisis raging in marginal constituencies across the UK.

The seats held by Iain Duncan Smith and justice secretary Alex Chalk are among 85 Tory constituencies with a critical number of voters whose monthly outgoings are now higher than their income.