TORY leadership contender Liz Truss abandoned plans for an £8.8 billion attack on public-sector wages today after they provoked a storm of opposition.

The Foreign Secretary blamed “wilful misrepresentation” of her proposals, while throwing her campaign into disarray with an embarrassing U-turn.

Trade unions and even some Tory MPs had voiced outrage after Ms Truss announced plans for regional wage cuts that would have drained £7.1 billion from regional economies in Yorkshire, the north of England, the Midlands and the south-west while benefiting London and the south-east.

The worst hit would have been the direct victims of the wage cuts, including nurses, teachers, and police.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said the plan would have created low-pay zones, starting “a race to the bottom, making well-paid work harder to find.

“She may have withdrawn the plan for now, but after 12 years already of Conservative pay caps and cuts, both Truss and [fellow Tory leadership hopeful Rishi] Sunak are still committed to holding down pay behind rising prices across the public sector.”

Helga Pile, deputy head of health at public service union Unison, said: “Cutting the wages of nurses, porters, paramedics and healthcare assistants in parts of the UK would have been the stuff of nightmares. 

“Staff would simply have left for other hospitals paying better wages  or gone to work in other sectors, creating yet more chaos for struggling services.

“This sorry episode only serves to deepen the despair of staff battling to care for patients in horrendous conditions. 

“That those vying to be PM were even thinking about slashing pay will be a huge blow to morale.”

Among Tory critics of the proposals were North West Durham MP Richard Holden, who said Ms Truss’s policy would “kill levelling-up.”

His party colleague Steve Double, MP for St Austell & Newquay, warned that the “terrible idea” would be “hugely damaging to public services in Cornwall, where we already struggle to recruit NHS staff.

“The billions saved would be coming straight out of rural economies.”

Prospect union general secretary Mike Clancy said: “The last 24 hours highlight the worst of British politics at the moment where ministers relentlessly attack hard-working public servants just to chase a headline.

“The British public are in a fragile place, trying to cope with endless waves of rising prices and falling wages. 

“It is time ministers put the national interest before that of their own leadership ambition.”