Former Tory chancellor Norman Lamont has urged his successor Philip Hammond to keep faith with public sector pay cuts and told nurses whinging about austerity that they ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Tories are keen to stress that they are “in listening mode” at the moment, but Lamont basically advised ministers to stick their fingers in their ears and hum Jerusalem until it all blows over.

The man who oversaw Black Wednesday, which cost the British economy more than £3 billion, told the Today programme:

“What concerns me is that there seems to be growing in the Conservative party a feeling that because the electorate disliked austerity, that this is the message that has come back, and therefor it ought to be discarded. “People are talking about austerity as thought it was an issue of too many repeats on television or they’d got tired of watching Poldark and wanted a better programme. “This is not a choice, it is unavoidable that we have restraint on public spending… “Austerity is just another word for living within ones means. It’s not really austerity.”

Asked whether he would be prepared to tell that to the nurse who famously asked Theresa May for a pay rise on Question Time, he said:

“Public sector pay is on average higher than in the private sector. “I would say in the NHS, where there is an issue of recruitment, if there is a shortage, yes you’ve got to look at that. “What I’m objecting to is the more general pressure that is being applied, the idea that we should abandon restraint on public expenditure. “The control on public sector pay is extremely important. It’s roughly half of current expenditure and its about 30% of total public expenditure, comes to £200bn plus a year. You’ve got to have a restraint on that.”

Responding to news that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have spoken out against the pay freeze, Lamont added:

“I think it is not right for cabinet ministers to gang up on the Chancellor in this way. I think it is making his position, which is always very difficult, very, very awkward indeed and I do think that, just to say because a lot of voters in the election objected to what was called austerity, we must abandon it.”

Laughably, Lamont blamed the Tories poor general election campaign on their failure to “make the case” for austerity and said the party would reap the rewards at the next election if they level with the public about the need for more cuts.

Bring it on…