Conservatives must do more to warn young voters about the "gloom and failure" of life under a socialist government, a Cabinet minister will say next week.

Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, will insist that it is "not good enough" for opponents of left-wing policies to simply say that "socialism is bad".

Instead those who lived through the left-wing policies of the 1970s should set out the reality of a socialist government "to those who have never experienced it in action".

In a speech on Wednesday, Mr Grayling is also expected to state there there is a "great irony" in younger generations being the most sceptical about a "free enterprise, capitalist society" despite being "umbilically linked" to devices manufactured by technology giants, and having their lives "shaped by Google and Amazon".

His intervention, in an address to the Institute for Economic Affairs, the free market think tank, comes amid concern among senior Conservatives about the gains expected to be made by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party in May's local elections, following the significant losses suffered by the Tories at last year's general election.