RMT chief Mick Lynch hits back at Liz Truss following her attack on unions

Mick Lynch has hit back at Liz Truss after she attacked the unions as part of what she called an "anti-growth coalition" in her keynote conference speech.

Ms Truss attempted to unite her party around a common enemy of the "anti-growth coalition" of trade unions, remainers and green campaigners after a turbulent Tory conference that left her party divided and her leadership in peril.

Speaking earlier this week, she said the Tories faced an "anti-growth coalition" of Labour, the SNP and Liberal Democrats, trade unions, anti-Brexit and environmental campaigners as well as “vested interests dressed up as thinktanks”.

"The fact is they prefer protesting to doing. They prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions. They taxi from north London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo.

“From broadcast to podcast, they peddle the same old answers," she said.

Speaking outside Euston station in London on Saturday, RMT general secretary Mr Lynch hit back.

He said: "The idea that I’m sitting around with other people saying, ‘let’s form a coalition so we can stop economic growth in Britain’, it’s just a nonsense.

"Everyone believes in economic growth, otherwise the economy doesn’t move forward. But what they mean by economic growth is the rich keep getting richer and working people continue to have their conditions diluted in the name of profit.

"I’m not deflected by what Liz Truss says, she seems to be an incompetent - her incompetence is only matched by her ego, and the same can be said for (Chancellor) Kwasi Kwarteng.

"They’re saying that we’re an anti-growth coalition; they had to go out and print £65 billion to prop up the bond market but they want to blame railway workers for what’s going on in the country."

Mr Lynch compared the Government to a lingering “bad smell” as he urged Ms Truss to make way for a “competent” successor.

He added: “They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know how to be economists, they don’t know how to run the railway.

“The quicker they get out the way and let people who are competent in the better it will be for all of us.

“We’re not part of any anti-growth coalition. We’re not against the economy, we’re not against the country, we want the country to succeed.

“And we want our people to succeed within that country – it’s in our interests. But I don’t think we’re going to get that off this current regime.

Asked how long the Government would remain in power, Mr Lynch answered with a chuckle: “We’ll see. Things linger, don’t they? Like bad smells.”