Floundering Liz Truss was today told "we need help now" by a dad forced to get a second job in order to pay bills - as she admitted her tax cuts could take months to enact.
Faced with terrifying rises in the energy price cap, which forecasters estimate could top £4,200 in January, Ms Truss faces desperate calls for action if she becomes PM.
She claimed she would act on "day one", but was forced to admit that her proposed tax cuts might not take effect until spring next year.
Confronted by voter Neil Darwish during The People’s Forum With Liz Truss broadcast by GB News, the frontrunner continued to claim that reversing a rise in National Insurance and pausing green energy levy would ease the pain for families.
She said that she would begin the process "on day one" of her premiership, but was forced to concede that it could still take until spring to bring her measures into effect.
"I will act on day one but it will come in well before April, which is when traditionally the tax year starts," the flustered Tory candidate stated, before adding: "But I will make sure the Chancellor does it as soon as he can."
Repeating her go-to line on handling the crisis, Ms Truss said: "My fundamental approach is we need to keep taxes low. What we shouldn't be doing is taking money from people in taxes and giving it back to them in benefits."
But Mr Darwish, a manager in the social housing sector, told her: "I need money now, we need money now, we can't wait."
The frontrunner told presenter Alistair Stewart: "There would be an emergency budget under my budget that would immediately look at these issues."
Ms Truss repeatedly failed to answer questions over whether a government with her at the helm would introduce a bailout scheme to help struggling families, instead stating: "We don't yet have a new Prime Minister, that happens in September, so I can't announce what I'll do at this stage."
However, she added: "If the only answer to everything is to whack up taxes and give out more benefits then the country is going to run into trouble.”
Earlier, she denied she was ruling out direct support for families - sparking claims of a new U-turn.
It follows an astonishing day of blue-on-blue attacks.
Mr Sunak told the BBC he would rather lose than "win on a false promise", saying the next PM has a "moral responsibility" to support the most needy.
He said he would stay "true" to his values.
The former chancellor said the next PM has a "moral responsibility" to support poorer households with payments for energy bills.
Elsewhere Ms Truss also appeared to suggest she plans to roll out more grammar schools across the UK if she becomes PM.
The Foreign Secretary, who polling suggests is ahead of Mr Sunak in the Tory leadership race, said she would focus on "better tuition" in primary schools.
Ms Truss said: "I support grammar schools, I went to a comprehensive school but my kids go to grammar schools.
"I want everyone to have that opportunity wherever they are in the country."
Earlier the Tory leadership contest descended into the most vicious blue-on-blue yet as the candidates branded each other "socialist" and immoral.
At 3.18pm Ms Truss's campaign accused Mr Sunak of "politics of envy" and "socialist tax and spend which will lead us to recession", moaning he's "never cut a tax in his life.
Rishi Sunak's campaign then hit back with its own broadside at 4.47pm, blasting Liz Truss for a "major U-turn" and "serious moral and political misjudgement".
Both candidates have said they'd work in the other's Cabinet if they lose the race to be PM - but the battle raises serious questions about Tory unity ahead of the 2024 election.
The row was sparked after Liz Truss edged closer to a cost-of-living U-turn, with a key ally saying she will look at “targeted help” for Brits.
The next Prime Minister favourite has branded direct payments “Gordon Brown style economics I don’t support” - but then repeatedly refused to rule out making them to the most vulnerable.
Her campaign furiously insisted there was no U-turn and she'd said all along she might give extra help, on top of tax cuts and the removal of green levies.
A Truss campaign spokesperson said: “Rishi Sunak wouldn’t know how people benefit from a tax cut because he has never cut a tax in his life.
"People didn’t vote for the Conservative Party to be subjected to old fashioned Gordon Brown style politics of envy.
“You cannot tax your way to growth and Liz’s agenda is to build a high wage, high growth, low tax economy that supports people.
"Liz believes in people keeping more of their own money, not Rishi’s socialist tax and spend which will lead us to recession.”
A Rishi Sunak campaign spokesperson lashed back: “This is a major u-turn on the biggest issue currently facing the country.
“It’s all very well offering empty words about ‘doing all you can’. But there aren’t lots of different ways to act on this. Taking action means providing direct support, which Truss had previously dismissed as ‘handouts’.
“Twice now, Truss has made a serious moral and political misjudgement on a policy affecting millions of people, after last week reversing plans to cut the pay of teachers and the armed forces outside London. Mistakes like this in Government would cost the Conservative Party the next General Election.”
Rishi Sunak is losing his advantage over Liz Truss with the general public, new polling has found.
A poll from Ipsos showed the proportion of people saying they thought the former Chancellor would make a good prime minister fell from 38% to 32% in the last week of July.
Over the same period, Liz Truss' figures have remained largely stable at 30%, giving Mr Sunak a lead of only two points over the Foreign Secretary.
Among Conservative voters, Mr Sunak's fall has been even steeper.
More than half of 2019 Tory voters said he would be a good prime minister in a poll carried out on July 20-21, but that figure fell to just 42% 10 days later.
The reverse is true for Ms Truss, whose support among Tory voters rose from 46% to 53% over the same period.
Ms Truss' name recognition also improved over July, with a third of the public now saying they know a great deal or a fair amount about her, while Mr Sunak's considerable lead on the question of who is most likely to help the Tories win the next election has narrowed to just three points.
Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos, said: "Any public perception that the Conservatives would be more likely to win a general election under Rishi Sunak than Liz Truss appears to have disappeared."
But greater name recognition has not been exclusively positive for Ms Truss.
While the proportion of the public saying she would be a good prime minister remained largely the same, the number thinking she would do a bad job rose from 27% to 32%, only just behind Mr Sunak's figure.
Both candidates also trailed Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer across a range of issues including how likely they were to improve public services, tackle the cost of living and act with integrity.
The only subject on which Mr Sunak outpolled Sir Keir was on who was more likely to grow the economy, with the former chancellor two points ahead, while Ms Truss led only on the question of who was more likely to reduce taxes.
Growing the economy was also the only area where 2019 Conservatives thought Mr Sunak was more likely to be effective than Ms Truss.
Mr Pedley added: "Whoever wins faces a significant challenge in repairing the Conservative brand.
"The public are more likely to think a Starmer-led Labour government would reduce the cost of living and improve Britain's public services, both key priorities for voters moving forward."
