A town mayor in Liz Truss’ Norfolk constituency has said she should lead the Tories into the next election - despite the polls suggesting she would take the party to a historic defeat.

Stewart Bell, the mayor of Swaffham, said his local MP had a good vision for the country and should be given the chance to pursue it.

“I think her ideas were good. Unfortunately she tried to do too much too quickly,” he said.

“She introduced all these tax cuts and things which instantly went against the money markets, and they don’t trust people who do things like that, because they’re not used to it, basically.”

He claimed that the market instability would have occurred with or without Ms Truss, because of the Queen’s death.

“If you have a leader that’s constant, people have more faith in how things are going to be run,” he said.

Mr Bell leads Swaffham Town Council as a political independent, but he also happens to be a Conservative party member, who voted for Ms Truss to be leader.

A business owner himself, he said her ideas to cut taxes and regulation appealed to him, as well as her promise of “cutting the waste in government”.

He suggested that the negativity around Ms Truss was being whipped up by MPs who have never supported her, and that she is the right person to lead them into the next election.

“The politicians are all calling on her to resign - it’s like a childhood school playground thing, because they didn’t get the prime minister they wanted.

“We didn’t choose their one [Rishi Sunak]. Of course they’re not happy.”

He said that just because the party was doing badly in the polls, didn’t mean the pollsters were capturing what people really think of Ms Truss.

“That doesn’t mean that they’re actually speaking to every person in this country, who actually thinks: ‘If they gave the woman a chance, maybe she can show us how to be really good’.

“I’ve met her before and I think she is trying to help this area. I really do.

“She does stand up for Norfolk. So I have no problem at all with her, as my MP.”

The mayors of Downham Market and Thetford - the other towns in Ms Truss’s constituency - were also approached, but both declined to comment on her performance so far.