TORY plans to require all future governments to generate a budget surplus will leave Britain “chained to idiocy for a generation,” outgoing Unison president Lucia McKeever said yesterday.

Opening the public-service union’s national delegate conference, she warned that the government was pushing a “ridiculous, economically illiterate plan to tie the hands of future governments.

“It is a shameless attempt to drag us back to Victorian times, with a complete disregard for the impact in terms of lack of growth and the need to invest in infrastructure,” Ms McKeever said.

The nursing assistant from Armagh also predicted that the Tory majority would lead to a sharp lurch to the right, in spite of the apparent toothlessness of the Lib Dems during the coalition years.

“We have a new Justice Minister who has previously called for the return of hanging, a new Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage and a new Health Minister who is opposed to abortion,” she pointed out.