Robert Halfon said that Theresa May’s failure to tackle deep social and economic problems left the Tories open to leftwing attack

Theresa May is stuck in the “political rhetoric of the past” and Labour’s message resonates with millions of voters, a former Tory minister has said.

Robert Halfon, a former skills minister, is calling on the Conservative leader to answer Jeremy Corbyn’s offer to working people laid out at the Labour conference.

In Liverpool this week Labour set out some of the most interventionist policies ever adopted by a mainstream political party. They included forcing all large companies to hand over 10 per cent of their ownership to workers’ funds in a raid that would cost existing shareholders hundreds of billions of pounds.

While business leaders have warned that investors would flee, Tory MPs are privately dismayed that the reaction was not more negative.

That