RISHI SUNAK could be out to scrap the state pension, the Communist challenger taking on his predecessor Liz Truss warned today.

Speaking in Thetford as the Tories made further National Insurance cuts the centrepiece of their election manifesto, Lorraine Douglas called on voters to “remember what National Insurance is for — the state pension, above all.”

The Communist Party executive member is contesting the South-West Norfolk seat represented by Ms Truss, whose disastrous blink-and-you’ll-miss-it premiership is widely blamed for the Conservatives’ submerged poll ratings.

Shoppers in the centre of Thetford had little good to say about their MP today, with many complaining that she was seldom seen in the constituency.

Instead she has been promoting her book Ten Years to Save the West and launching a new faction with oxymoronic name Popular Conservatism.

Ms Douglas described the book as “a love letter to free market capitalism” in a prose style that was “more Enid Blyton than Charles Dickens.”

The Communist campaign is focusing on housing, health and other pressing social problems common in rural areas.

That includes improved transport links. “Every village has a station road, but none of them now have a station,” Ms Douglas pointed out. “We want to bring back the railway lines.”