Afternoon summary
Liz Truss has promised Britons she has “got your back” and set out a plan for “growth, growth and growth” in a conference speech disrupted by protesters asking who voted for her plan. My colleague Peter Walker has five takeaways from the speech here.
Truss has been criticised by a leading conservation charity for implying that all environmentalists are part of a malign “anti-growth coalition”. (See 2.21pm.) As my colleague Helena Horton explains, this came at the end of a conference in which environmentalists and their concerns were routinely criticised or ignored.
Updated
Here is my colleague Aubrey Allegretti’s take on Liz Truss’s speech.
And here is an extract.
The prime minister’s 35-minute address contained no new policy announcements, and only the gentlest of nods to the division that has rocked the first few weeks of her premiership, with little of the contrition that some were hoping for.
But it did the job, and almost all of those leaving the conference centre will have departed with no worse view of their leader than they had the day before.
One cabinet minister reflected that the speech “won’t be remembered”, and several other members of the government greeted it with a collective shrug of the shoulders.
According to new YouGov polling, only 7% of people think the Conservative party is united. But 45% of people see Labour as united.
The same poll shows that by the end of their party conference, the Tories were seen as more divided than before. But Labour came out of its party conference looking significantly less divided than before.
After a contentious leadership election the Tories will have been hoping to see the party come together. But Britons see it as even more divided than it was
— YouGov (@YouGov) October 5, 2022
Very divided: 45% (+8 from 1 Sep)
Fairly divided: 33% (-4)
Very/fairly united: 7% (-3) https://t.co/mR2oXHxF1s pic.twitter.com/IFpYiD7UKr
Britons now tend to see Labour as a united party, by 45% to 30%.
— YouGov (@YouGov) October 5, 2022
At the start of September they saw it as divided, by 49% to 25%https://t.co/n0e5xONVP2 pic.twitter.com/Em5MBXwhkz
Businesses that paid £400 per head for a dinner with ministers at the Tory conference were left disappointed, the BBC’s Ione Wells and Paul Twinn report. Here’s an extract from their story.
The business representative said a minister who was meant to be on their table turned up late, and said those on other tables didn’t show up at all, or left early.
They added that the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, did turn up and said a few words, and spoke to every table.
The source also said that “most people’s reflections” were that the reception after the equivalent business event at last week’s Labour conference was very positive, whereas businesses said they did not “feel the love” at this one and the organisation felt “complacent”.
Exc: Some multibillion $ businesses tell BBC they were left ‘dismayed’ after paying £3k+ for Tory conference dinner where some ministers were late or didn’t show up, and they were booted out early before coffee & dessert.
— Ione Wells (@ionewells) October 5, 2022
“We never got our mango sorbet.”https://t.co/w6rKds9mBn
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Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says Liz Truss’s speech failed to stop the Tory conference being a disaster. In his response to it, he said:
The Conservative party conference has been a disaster for families and the economy. Liz Truss has only managed to add to the sense of failure with her speech.
The Conservatives have lost control of the economy causing eye-watering mortgage payments, soaring inflation and an ever-deepening cost of living emergency.
Liz Truss is out of touch and doesn’t seem to care about the damage her government is causing the country. The only way to solve this crisis is to get the Conservatives out of power.
Here is the Guardian’s Comment panel on Liz Truss’s speech. There are contributions from Mick Lynch, Polly Toynbee, Sahil Dutta, Owen Jones, Fatima Ibrahim and Isabel Hardman.
Libertarian thinktanks challenge Truss to show she will deliver on her growth agenda
The Institute of Economic Affairs, a libertarian thinktank, sounded surprisingly underwhelmed in its response to Liz Truss’s speech. Truss has been a strong supporter of the IEA, and much of her policy agenda overlaps with what the IEA has been calling for. But in a press release responding to the speech, Mark Littlewood, the IEA director general, just said:
During her leadership campaign Truss spoke about ‘delivery, delivery, delivery’.
She now needs to return to this theme if she’s going to achieve today’s message of ‘growth, growth, growth’.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance, another free-market thinktank arguing for a smaller state, also said it was up to Truss to deliver on the philosophy she set out. In its response to the speech, John O’Connell, its chief executive, said:
The prime minister was right to give both barrels to the enemies of enterprise.
To go for growth, Britain has to break free from the shackles of our gruelling tax system and the sluggish status quo.
Truss must now put words into action to tackle the cost of government crisis.
The thinktanks may be alarmed at indications that Truss is retreating from her libertarian agenda. The IEA called for the abolition of the 45% top rate of income tax – a move included in the mini-budget, but dropped on Monday after a revolt at party conference.
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'Sky News better at paying for cab' - how Truss's BBC jibe may have missed its mark
Liz Truss drew cheers from the Tory faithful by listing her enemies in an “anti-growth coalition” who, she said in her conference speech, took taxis from north London townhouses to BBC studios “to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo”.
But ironically, one of the biggest complaints of BBC producers is that they can’t get north Londoners into cabs to defend the status quo – because the UK’s pundit class has become so used to doing much less time-consuming Zoom interviews from their spare rooms.
And unlike Sky and other channels, the BBC has a growing reputation for being stingy on appearance fees – the modest sums that are used to entice pundits on air.
Asked about the comments made by Truss, the BBC was reluctant to engage – perhaps weary of crossing swords with a Conservative leader who has previously mocked the broadcaster by saying that it did not have the “high quality standards” of GB News.
A BBC spokesperson said that any questions about the prime minister’s speech should be for No 10.
Most broadcasters – ranging from the BBC and Sky News through to newcomers such as GB News – routinely pay for taxis for guests to travel to and from their studios, particularly for early-morning and late-night slots. But one intermittent “talking head” on BBC programmes said that the broadcaster had “got mean with taxis”.
“Sky News much better for a cab, but to be fair it would take about a week to get there on your own,” they added, referring to the channel’s headquarters in Isleworth, west London.
Updated
In her speech Liz Truss also described “vested interests dressed up as thinktanks” as part of the “anti-growth coalition”. (See 12.37pm.) On Radio 4’s World at One Paul Scully, the local government minister, was asked if he knew what she was referring to. “I’m not too sure to be honest,” Scully replied. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure.”
Of course Truss herself was deputy director of a thinktank, Reform, before she became an MP.
And some of the thinktanks that back her most enthusiastically, such as the Institute for Economic Affairs, do not disclose all the sources of their funding, leading to claims they operate on behalf of “vested interests”.
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Liz Truss included “militant unions” as part of what she described as the “anti-growth coalition”. (See 12.37pm.) That prompted this response from Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary. Graham said:
Liz Truss says she is focused on growth, but if she really wanted to help the UK economy she would be helping us get more money into the pockets of workers. She would not dismiss as ‘militant’ the nurses, drivers, refuse collectors, dockers and the tens of thousands of workers taking action on pay up and down the country so they can pay their bills and defend their families.
What is the point of a bigger pie if bad bosses get to divide it? Unite is dealing with a number of profiteering companies right now who are raking it in, while trying to impose pay cuts on their workers.
Updated
Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker has taken a swipe at former Lord Frost over re-started Brexit talks.
Neither of you seem to have bothered with my comments on resolve. But the EU and the Irish have.
— Steve Baker MP FRSA 🗽 (@SteveBakerHW) October 5, 2022
And on red lines, the point is not to discuss them in public. Not to have none. 🙄
He took Frost to task after Frost retweeted his support for an article criticising Baker for apologising to the Irish and the EU earlier this week.
I agree with this from @3000Versts. Whether our goals are achieved by negotiation or by the NI Protocol Bill, it is vital to be 100% clear about what we are trying to achieve and what an acceptable outcome would have to look like.https://t.co/93tebD4TZ3
— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) October 5, 2022
Baker complained that Frost and the author of the article had ignored his parallel pledge to ensure the UK demands that trade barriers were removed between NI and GB.
“Neither of you seem to have bothered with my comments on resolve” to push the UK position. “But the EU and the Irish have,” he pointed out.
“And on red lines, the point is not to discuss them in public. Not to have none,” added Baker in an indication that talks will go into a “tunnel” with little commentary in the coming weeks.
Baker is meeting Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney in London on Friday.
The pound has wiped out its gains from earlier in the day, falling in value against the US dollar following the prime minister’s speech at the Conservative Party conference, PA Media reports. PA says:
Sterling dipped by 1.4% to $1.1312 shortly after Liz Truss told the conference that the government was making “difficult but necessary” choices to stimulate economic growth.
The pound had hit a three-week high against the dollar in early session trading, taking it to around $1.147 dollars.
It followed a short-lived rebound on Tuesday after reports that the chancellor could be bringing forward the highly anticipated fiscal plan and official economic forecast.
But concerns that the government has taken on too much debt while ploughing ahead with sweeping tax cuts have continued to spook investors since the unveiling of last week’s mini-budget.
Ten-year gilt yields rose by nearly 4% on Wednesday afternoon after Ms Truss’s speech at the party conference.
Commenting on the moves, Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said:
As prime minister Liz Truss took to the stage to try and shore up her support among her party and the country, the pound fell further back and government borrowing costs rose slightly.
She may have hoped that her triple promise of growth would have calmed markets further but with nothing new to offer on the table, her words have not had the desired effect so far.
The pound dipped below $1.14 dollars, hovering around $1.135 dollars, and 10-year gilt yields lifted a little to a whisker under 4%.
The speech will do little to quell dissent over worries that public services will bear the brunt of the tax cuts plans.
The Green party has also attacked Liz Truss for what she said about the “anti-growth coalition”. (See 2.21pm.) Zack Polanski, the party’s deputy leader, said:
This government is determined to wreck the climate with a dangerous drive to growth that is based on greater investment in fossil fuels that are destroying the planet.
Liz Truss used her speech today to try and build a coalition of ‘enemies’ that she claims are holding the country back. This is divisive and false.
We stand for the planet and for the people. There is no climate justice without social justice, and no future for the planet with this dead-end government.
Truss criticised for implying all environmentalists are part of 'anti-growth coalition'
The CPRE, formerly the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, has condemned Liz Truss’s attack on the anti-growth coalition. In her speech Truss singled out the more militant Extinction Rebellion for particular criticism, but she also implied that anyone opposed to road building schemes, or new nuclear power stations, were at fault too. (See 12.37pm.)
Paul Miner, acting director of campaigns and policy at CPRE, said:
This disingenuous ‘anti-growth coalition’ rhetoric ignores rural communities up and down the country who have heartfelt concerns about the government’s agenda. It’s not eco-protesters organising the resistance to fracking, it’s ordinary people who are furious at what they see as a litany of betrayal and broken promises.
On deregulation zones, a broad and growing coalition of councillors, MPs, residents’ groups, conservationists and planning experts across all political spectrums are dismayed at the government’s divisive and destructive attitude.
It’s misleading for the prime minister to suggest environmental protections are the enemy of economic growth, or that local democracy and good planning hinder business confidence.
The public is demanding more genuinely affordable homes, better public transport, an urgent transition to renewable energy and a cleaner, healthier environment. It’s time the government got on board with what people want and stopped presenting a false choice between the economy and the environment.
Updated
In her response to Liz Truss’s speech, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, says the biggest obstacle to growth is Brexit.
Ranting about an imaginary ‘anti growth coalition’ is just an attempt to obscure the hard reality that the biggest brake on UK growth is Brexit - and that’s on the Tories.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 5, 2022
The Labour party has issued a response to Liz Truss’s speech from Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor. Reeves said:
Liz Truss has been a government minister for the last 10 years.
She has been at the heart of building a Conservative economy that has led to the flat wages and low growth she highlighted today.
Labour knows real growth comes from the contribution of millions of working people and thousands of businesses.
The most important thing the prime minister can do right now to stabilise the economy is to immediately reverse her government’s kamikaze budget when parliament returns next week.
Labour could have pointed out that, when Liz Truss said in her speech that her priorities for the economy were “growth, growth, growth” (see 11.25am), she was almost quoting Keir Starmer word for word. In his speech on growth in July, Starmer said he wanted to ensure that workers got respect, security and defence pay. He went on: “To do all that we need three things: Growth. Growth. And growth.”
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Teaching union condemns Kit Malthouse for saying some schools 'hanging onto mediocrity'
School leaders have reacted with fury to a speech by the new education secretary Kit Malthouse, in which he suggested parts of the sector were “hanging onto mediocrity”.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has written to Malthouse expressing dismay at his comments, accusing him of taking cheap shots at a profession “already on its knees”.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Conservative conference, Malthouse said England’s school system was in need of constant attention and pressure from government to drive it forward.
He said there had been vast progress in lots of schools, “but there are still pockets that need our attention. And we need to reflect on the fact that there’s nothing quite as persistent as people hanging onto mediocrity.”
The ASCL letter, signed by its general secretary, Geoff Barton, and president, Evelyn Forde, said the key challenges affecting schools and colleges were lack of funding and a rapidly growing staff recruitment and retention crisis. Barton and Forde went on:
In this context, we were frankly appalled to hear you talk about people leading and working in our schools and colleges as ‘hanging on to mediocrity’, and claim that education needs ‘constant attention and constant pressure’ in order to ‘drive it forward’.
Rather than raising the stakes even higher, and taking cheap shots at a profession already on its knees, your department should be moving heaven and earth to provide schools and colleges with the funding they need to keep their doors open, the support they need to provide education and care to children and young people with increasingly complex needs, and a functioning pipeline of teachers to staff their organisations. Anything else is mere posturing.
The NASUWT teaching union also criticised comments by the schools minister Jonathan Gullis, who told a fringe meeting the government was “not going to budge” over teachers’ pay in England this year.
Gullis - a former teacher and NASUWT union rep - said he wanted to “do everything I can to avoid any kind of industrial action” to avoid disruption.
But Patrick Roach, the NASUWT general secretary, said Gullis needed to “urgently” think again over the government’s 5% pay offer. Roach said:
We have asked ministers to talk to us but it is clear that finding a negotiated settlement is not their priority. Ministers are leaving us with no other alternative than to ballot our members to support industrial action in response to the cuts to teachers’ pay.
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Liz Truss is expected to meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, when she attends a summit of European leaders in Prague, PA Media reports. PA says:
The prime minister travels to the Czech Republic for the meeting of the European Political Community after a difficult party conference dominated by internal division and backbench opposition to some of her key policies.
There she is expected to meet the French premier again for a bilateral meeting, after holding talks with Mr Macron during a UN summit in New York last month.
Energy and migration are believed to be at the top of the agenda during the one-day visit to Prague.
Updated
Ministers to be told by whips to have more respect for collective responsibility, No 10 suggests
The Conservative party whips will take steps to ensure that ministers are more disciplined in what they say in public about government policy, No 10 has hinted.
At a briefing after Liz Truss’s speech, her press secretary said:
There’s always going to be differences of opinion between people, people are entitled to their personal opinions. But they should be raised in a more constructive manner. Collective responsibility is the same as it always has been.
Asked if that message will be rammed home in Westminster next week, the press secretary replied:
You will have to speak to the whips about that, but that should answer your question.
Asked if Penny Mordaunt could lose the whip for saying benefits should be uprated in line with inflation, when the government has yet to take a decision on this, the press secretary replied said: “That’s one for the whips but I don’t imagine that to be the case.”
The conference was notable for the lack of message discipline by Tories, with ministers setting out their personal views on policy, instead of sticking to the government line.
Updated
Liz Truss has angered the founder of M People by walking on stage before her Tory party conference speech to the sound of the dance music band’s 1993 single Moving on Up.
Michael Pickering, who co-wrote the song and founded the group, expressed his annoyance on Twitter before the Truss speech was even finished, tweeting: “No permission given for that we’re very angry.”
He later added:
So apparently we can’t stop Truss walking out to our song, very weird!”
So sad it got used by this shower of a government. BTW Truss labour used it with permission in 90’s. I don’t want my song being a soundtrack to lies.
It’s not the first time that a Conservative leader has fallen foul of British musicians.
Johnny Marr, a founding member and the lead guitarist of the Smiths, called in 2010 on the then prime minister, David Cameron, to stop saying that he liked the band. “Stop saying that you like the Smiths, no you don’t,” he wrote on Twitter, adding: “I forbid you to like it.”
Truss has also previously suggested that her own favourite tastes are rooted in the decade of Thatcherism
“Maybe one thing people don’t know about me is that I love 1980s music and I do love karaoke – so, as well as working hard, I like to enjoy music,” she told GB News, adding that her favourite song was I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston.
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Truss's speech - verdict from Twitter commentariat
And this is what political journalists and commentators are saying about Liz Truss’s speech. “OK” would be a reasonable summary, in so far as there is a consensus.
From my colleague Rafael Behr
There is a strategic risk in defining the enemy as 'everyone who disagrees with me'. Is it anti-growth or just anti-Truss coalition?
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) October 5, 2022
Shades of Heath:
Q: Who governs Britain?"
A: Not you!
From Lucy Fisher of Times Radio
Struck that Truss used a large portion of her speech to define herself negatively - against ‘anti-growth’ enemies
— Lucy Fisher (@LOS_Fisher) October 5, 2022
They included Labour, unions, commentators, green activists…
Easier than defining oneself positively & tends to be (depressingly) effective as campaign strategy
From the New Statesman’s Jeremy Cliffe
Truss speech was forgettable boilerplate. She's motivated by ideas, but v little sense of them (other than generic pro-growth platitudes). Where was vision of Britain in 2030/2040? The narrative arc? The joined-up story about where UK has been, stands today & should go in future?
— Jeremy Cliffe (@JeremyCliffe) October 5, 2022
For a PM who sees herself as a disrupter of the status quo, a revolutionary driven by big ideas, really surprising how much of it was just the usual shopping list of Tory talking points - virtually indistinguishable from, say, early-2010s vintage Cameron or Osborne.
— Jeremy Cliffe (@JeremyCliffe) October 5, 2022
From the Sun’s Harry Cole
Seen many worse conference speeches.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) October 5, 2022
Easily LT’s best public performance since that surprising turn at the Leeds hustings.
“Enemies of enterprise” grifters Vs grafters worked in room.
Will have to keep hammering if it’s going to become a thing tho.
Greenpeace ended up a gift.
From the Financial Times’ Robert Shrimsley
After torrid week Truss gave a confident performance which may put some heart into her allies, but it changes nothing
— robert shrimsley (@robertshrimsley) October 5, 2022
From ITV’s Robert Peston
Truss speech nutshelled: I went to a comprehensive, I promise promise promise to get the growth rate of the economy up, and I am sorry you thought I didn’t like the Bank of England. Oh and ta to Greenpeace for a protest that allowed me to bond with my members in the hall. Tutto.
— Robert Peston (@Peston) October 5, 2022
From my colleague Gaby Hinsliff
Strong ‘is that..it’ vibes as Truss finishes. The argument was basically’ trust me I’m right, end of’, and everyone who disagrees is a wuss who hates business
— gabyhinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) October 5, 2022
From the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman
The hall can be worst place to watch speeches, but my impression is Truss did well after a disastrous week. Clear pro-growth message, decent back story that was not unbearably mawkish. Well delivered. Strong on Ukraine and no mention of Boris. Still think she’s doomed, mind you
— Gideon Rachman (@gideonrachman) October 5, 2022
From the Economist’s Matthew Holehouse
The crucial context to the Anti-Growth Coalition is that Truss already *already yielded* to said coalition in her leadership campaign on housing. She told activists mandatory targets will be dropped; investment zones in area of local consent where economic activity is low.
— Matthew Holehouse (@mattholehouse) October 5, 2022
From the BBC’s Faisal Islam
Anyway mainly political/ rhetorical speech, making economic argument, yes, but without new policy. I suggested a week ago speeches would be edited of any content that might spook markets…have to assume that absent last week there’d have been normal tax cut/ policy rabbit etc
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 5, 2022
From the broadcaster Michael Crick
Ironic that Truss ejects disruptors during a speech in defence of disruption
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) October 5, 2022
From the former FT editor Lionel Barber
Truss speech beat (very low) expectations, but even as a sarf Londoner I am struggling to understand the prime minister’s hostility to north London. Surely cannot be that many votes in it for her….
— Lionel Barber (@lionelbarber) October 5, 2022
From the Observer’s Michael Savage
The bar for this speech was very low - "don't make things worse".
— Michael Savage (@michaelsavage) October 5, 2022
In terms of content, she managed it - but in delivery, MPs will see her main weakness highlighted.
Truss's "strength" was being a doer, but what is a doer who can't do anything?
From the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges
Solid speech from Liz Truss. No especially memorable lines. But no hostages to fortune. After the week she’s had she’ll take that.
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) October 5, 2022
From Talk TV’s Tom Newton Dunn
Most most important part of Truss's speech was her attempt to frame a new 'one of us' narrative. Straight from the Thatcher playbook: the fight of our times is Growth (me and the grafters) vs Anti-Growth (all my critics, BBC studio pundits etc). Let's see who buys it.#CPC22
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) October 5, 2022
From my colleague Peter Walker
I’m not in the room, or even in Birmingham - I’m listening on the radio on a coach back to London - but so far Truss’s speech does not feel very exciting. Doesn’t feel like a disaster either, but less a reset than a steady-the-listing-ship. Which is presumably the plan.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) October 5, 2022
From the author and broadcaster Steve Richards
The Truss speech was like being harangued by a right wing accountant …which is what she is…Taxes.. ! Regulations …! Meddling …! Vacuous prejudices in a poorly crafted rant…
— steve richards (@steverichards14) October 5, 2022
From my colleague Owen Jones
Liz Truss' efforts to portray her opponents as privileged defenders of the status quo is interesting, given her party is funded by multimillionaires, billionaires and big businesses, who she wants to hand whopping big tax cuts
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) October 5, 2022
Updated
From Sky’s Ed Conway
Not sure the two things are connected but the pound has fallen a bit during and since the @trussliz speech.
— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) October 5, 2022
Here it is vs $ and €. pic.twitter.com/F4vKJihdN6
Full text of Truss's attack on 'anti-growth coalition'
And here is the passage from Liz Truss’s speech attacking the “anti-growth coalition”.
I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back.
Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP …
… the militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as thinktanks …
… the talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier.
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.
It’s always more taxes, more regulation and more meddling.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
We see the anti-growth coalition at work across the country.
Keir Starmer wants to put extra taxes on the companies we need to invest in our energy security.
And his sticking plaster solution will only last six months.
He has no long-term plan and no vision for Britain.
Mark Drakeford in Wales is cancelling road-building projects and refusing to build the M4 relief road.
Nicola Sturgeon won’t build new nuclear power stations in Scotland to solve the energy crisis in Scotland.
Have these people ever seen a tax rise they don’t like?
Or an industry they don’t want to control?
They don’t understand the British people.
They don’t understand aspiration.
They are prepared to leave our towns and cities facing decline.
My friends, does this anti-growth coalition have any idea who pays their wages?
It’s the people who make things in factories across our country.
It’s the people who get up at the crack of dawn to go to work.
It’s the commuters who get trains into towns and cities across our country.
I’m thinking of the white van drivers, the hairdressers, the plumbers, the accountants, the IT workers and millions of others up and down the UK.
The anti-growth coalition just doesn’t get it.
This is because they don’t face the same challenges as normal working people.
These enemies of enterprise don’t know the frustration you feel to see your road blocked by protesters, or the trains off due to a strike.
In fact, their friends on the hard left tend to be the ones behind the disruption.
The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes.
I say the real heroes are those who go to work, take responsibility and aspire to a better life for themselves and their family.
And I am on their side.
Updated
Here is the full text of Liz Truss’s conference speech.
Truss's conference speech – snap verdict
That was a safety-first speech. It was much shorter than a usual party conference speech, it did not contain any policy announcements, and in fact it did not really contain much news at all. Given the hostile reaction to much of what the government has been saying in the last four weeks – on the financial markets, in the polls (the opinion markets), and among MPs – the fact that Truss managed to get through this without antagonising her party any further is probably a bonus. She hasn’t made things worse.
Quite a lot of the speech sounded like the stump speech she was making during the Tory leadership, or what she was saying during the hustings. These arguments were successful with her audience – Conservative party members – and so it probably made sense to provide them with an encore today. But hardcore free-market libertarianism is a niche enthusiasm, even in the Conservative party, and there was nothing in the speech that will make her economic agenda sound more appealing to the public at large than it is already (which is not, not very). The speech was not even particularly well-written.
It is not as if the government has no plans. Within the next few weeks the government intends to introduce supply-side reforms (deregulation, mostly) in eight areas, but Truss did not want to talk about these in detail at all. Perhaps she realises the plans won’t be universally welcomed, even by her party. You can imagine the conversation in the speech-drafting session. “Shall we include the bit about ripping up the working time directive, or issuing more visas for seasonal workers, or Jacob Rees-Mogg’s plan to allow people on high salaries to be sacked for no reason? Probably best we don’t.”
Welfare was another black hole in the speech. Truss did address the controversy over the 45% top rate of income tax (using the same words Kwasi Kwarteng used), but she did not talk about uprating benefits. Given the mood in the party, she may have already given up hope of getting away with not uprating them in line with inflation.
The most memorable passage of the speech was the attack on the “anti-growth coalition”. This sounded like a routine Daily Mail whinge about anyone with vaguely progressive views. It did not amount to a serious critique, and some of it may have angered her own MPs (for example, the line criticising people who “taxi from north London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo” – a category that includes a large number of prominent Tories).
It was also hypocritical. If Truss really wanted to go to war with the anti-growth coalition, she would pick a fight with Brexiters opposed to rejoining the single market, MPs who block development on the green belt and politicians who want to restrict immigration. But she can’t, because that’s her party.
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Liz Truss wrong to claim she is first PM to have attended comprehensive school
Liz Truss was wrong when she claimed in her conference speech that she was the first prime minister to have gone to a comprehensive school. Gordon Brown went to a comprehensive secondary school (Kirkcaldy high school), while Theresa May’s school was converted into a comprehensive while she was a pupil there: Holton Park girls’ grammar school, in Oxfordshire, became Wheatley Park comprehensive school in 1971, two years after May enrolled. The education secretary at the time was Margaret Thatcher.
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Greenpeace says it disrupted Truss's speech because she's putting environmental protections 'through shredder'
The environmental activists who disrupted Liz Truss’s Tory party conference speech denounced the prime minister’s “shredding” of her party’s election manifesto promises on protection for nature.
As Truss outlined her reasons for the economic policies implemented within days of becoming prime minister, Greenpeace UK’s head of public affairs, Rebecca Newsom, and its policy officer, Ami McCarthy, stood up close to the front of the conference hall with a banner asking: “Who voted for this?”
Conference delegates responded with boos and snatched their banner from their hands, only for the two women to pull out another, identical banner. “Let’s get them removed,” Truss said, as badged security guards intervened.
In a statement sent moments after the intervention, Greenpeace UK said it had identified at least seven areas across environmental protection, climate action, workers’ rights and tackling inequality where policies considered by Truss’s cabinet contradicted the 2019 Conservative election manifesto.
In the statement Newsom said:
Who voted for this? In a healthy democracy, people should get the government programme they voted for, but Liz Truss is putting most of it through the shredder.
People voted for strong action on climate, a fracking moratorium, world-leading environmental protections, and tackling poverty and inequality.
What they’re getting instead is fracking, a potential bonfire of rules on wildlife and nature protection, and now the prospect of benefit cuts.
Broken promise after broken promise, the prime minister is quickly turning her party’s manifesto into the longest piece of false advertising ever written. Many will be left wondering whether her government answers to the public or to the hedge fund managers, rightwing thinktanks and fossil fuel giants that are cheering it on.
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And here is Truss’s peroration.
That is why we can’t give in to the voices of decline. We can’t give in to those who say Britain can’t grow faster. We can’t give in to those who say we can’t do better. We must stay the course.
We are the only party with a clear plan to get Britain moving. We are the only party with a determination to deliver. Together we can unleash the full potential of our great country. That is how we will build a new return for a new era.
Truss condemns 'anti-growth coalition' who she claims always favour more tax and regulation
Truss has now reached the passage in the speech she referred to earlier.
I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back: Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the militant unions, the vested interests, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers, Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier.
I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back.
She says people in this group prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions. And they would rather rush to a BBC studio than challenge the status quo.
She says this group have never seen a tax rise they don’t like.
And they have no idea who pays their wages, she claims. The anti-growth coalition “just don’t get it”. They don’t know how frustrating it is to see the roads being blocked by protesters, or the trains on strike.
She says the protests are normally being organised by their friends on the hard-left.
The anti-growth coalition sees these people as heroes. But the real heroes are the people who go out to work, she says.
Truss says the government is improving energy security to make the UK less dependent on authoritarian regimes.
Turning to immigration, she says the “brilliant” new home secretary, Suella Braverman, will introduce legislation to ensure no European judge can overturn the government as it takes decisive action to strengthen the borders.
(She does not elaborate on what this means.)
She also says Labour has no plan for illegal immigration.
Turning to the NHS, Truss confirms the government commitment to ensuring all patients can get an appointment with a GP within two weeks. People who need urgent care will be seen on the same day, she says.
Truss says her government will 'realise promise of Brexit'
Truss says she will “realise the promise of Brexit”. She goes on:
By the end of the year, all EU red tape will be consigned to history.
Brexit will allow the UK to do things differently, she says.
Truss says she is also committed to economic reform.
She says businesses have been held back by barriers to growth such as “militant unions, nationalised industries and outdated City regulations”.
Planning rules also delay building and infrastructure projects, she says. She goes on:
I love business. I love enterprise. I love people who take responsibility, start their own businesses … I want to see more of that.
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Truss says she believes in fiscal responsibility.
I believe in getting value for the taxpayer. I believe in sound money and a lean state. I remember my shock opening my first pay cheque to see how much money the tax man had taken out.
I know this feeling is replicated across the country.
She says she will bring down debt as a proportion of national income.
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Truss claims cutting taxes is right morally and economically
Truss says she and her “dynamic” new chancellor will focus on three things.
First, they will cut taxes. Cutting taxes is the right thing to do, morally and economically. Tax cuts are morally right because it is people’s money, and economically right because, with more of their own money, they will do more of what they do best.
She sums up some of the tax cuts she has announced.
Tax rates have to be internationally competitive, she says. Cutting taxes shows Britain is open for business.
She says cutting the 45% rate became a “distraction”. That is why is is not longer part of the plan.
I get it. And I have listened.
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Truss says she has three priorities for economy: 'growth, growth and growth'
Truss makes her argument about needing to grow the pie, “so that everyone gets a bigger slice”, not just argue about redistribution. (See 9.13am.)
She says a new approach is needed.
As the last few weeks have shown, it will be difficult.
Whenever there is change, there is disruption. Not everyone will be in favour. But everyone will benefit from the result: a growing economy and a better future. That is what we have a clear plan to deliver.
Truss says she has three priorities for our economy: “growth, growth and growth”.
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Truss says the energy package was the biggest part of the mini-budget.
She says for too long the economy has not grown fast enough.
She grew up in Paisley in the 1980s, she says. She knows what low growth means. It means lower wages, fewer opportunities and less money to spend on what matters.
And it means the country falling behind other countries, she says.
That is why they need to level up everywhere.
Truss says she is going to talk about the anti-growth coalition later in her speech. She jokes the protesters timed their intervention too early.
Truss's speech disrupted by environmental protesters
Protesters are disrupting the speech. At least two of them are in the hall shouting, and waving a banner that says Greenpeace on it.
The audience boo. The protesters are taken out.
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Truss says she knows what it is like to have to fight for things in life.
She recalls as a child being on a plane and being given a junior air hostess’s badge. Her brothers got junior air pilot’s badges. It was not the only time she was treated unfairly because of her sex.
And, as a child, she saw other children being let down by low expectations, and by a Labour council more concerned about politics than about children’s education.
She says she is the first prime minister to have gone to a comprehensive school.
(Of course, Truss’s account of the flaws with the school she attended has been dismissed as untrue by many people who were there at the time – for example, in this article.)
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Truss says this is a vital time. These are stormy days. We mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth, “the rock on which modern Britain was built”.
In these tough times, we need to step up. She says she wants to put Britain on a stronger footing.
I believe that you know best how to spend your own money, to get on in life, to realise your ambitions.
That is what conservatism is about.
She says she is not interested in how many two-for-one offers people buy at the supermarket, or in virtual signalling.
(Boris Johnson was going to ban buy-one-get-one-free offers for unhealthy food items.)
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Liz Truss is taking the stage now. She gets a standing ovation as she arrives.
She says it is great to be here in Birmingham. It’s fantastic to see cranes across the skyline building new buildings, the trams going down the streets, and the bull at the heart of Birmingham.
This is what a city with a Tory mayor looks like. It’s positive, it’s enterprising, it’s successful, and Andy Street is a human dynamo, delivering for the people of Birmingham.
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In the video Truss is saying she wants to get rid of the “barriers and blockages” that stop people setting up their own firms.
A video is being shown about Liz Truss. In it she is talking about growing up in Leeds and going to a comprehensive school.
She says, when she saw that people might have to pay £6,000 for fuel, she thought that was not right.
It was right to take a decision to avoid that, she says.
And she says she needs to ensure energy security for the future too.
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Liz Truss addresses conference with new YouGov polling showing her already less popular than Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn ever were.
Liz Truss is already less popular than Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn ever were
— YouGov (@YouGov) October 5, 2022
Liz Truss: -59 net favourability (1-2 Oct)
Boris Johnson worst score: -53 (July 2022)
Jeremy Corbyn worst score: -55 (June 2019)https://t.co/28mDtcnwSO pic.twitter.com/vsdXbzUaZs
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At the conference cabinet members are now taking their seats in the hall.
We are now waiting to Liz Truss to start – unless there is a surprise speaker coming on to introduce her.
Zahawi lists a string of other cabinet ministers, saying they are all delivering too.
And when they do deliver, “we will blow Labour out of the water”, he claims.
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Zahawi says Liz Truss is the third female prime minister, and the third female Conservative PM. He goes on:
Labour – all talk, but all we see is trousers.
He goes on to talk about how Truss works in the cabinet room, at the cabinet table, surrounded by papers.
Our new prime minister has total clarity of what she wants. Se has the laser-like focus that is a prerequisite of a great CEO. And, crucially, she knows her own mind.
Zahawi says Truss has told him what she wants to deliver. And he says he is overseeing that “effectively as the chief operating officer of this administration”.
(Others in the cabinet might not be so happy about the promotion Zahawi seems to have awarded himself.)
Nadhim Zahawi, the Cabinet Office minister, is speaking now. He started by recalling being called a “race traitor” at university when he refused to join a leftwing group. He responded by joining the Conservatives, he said, and he said he was hooked on politics from that moment.
Liz Truss to address Tory conference
Liz Truss is about to deliver her first speech as leader, and prime minister, to the Conservative party conference. There are some in the party who also think it could be last; some of her critics have been speculating that she could be forced out by Christmas, because her first month in power has gone so badly, although it is hard to imagine a party ditching a leader so quickly.
Normally a leader’s speech at conference last for around 50 minutes. We have been told this one will be about half that long, coming in at around 20 to 30 minutes.
According to an extract released in advance, she is going to double down on her commitment to change an reform, telling members that this will bring “disruption” too. (See 9am.)
In Birmingham the concerence proceedings have started, and Jake Berry, the party chair, is speaking.
He starts by paying tribute to Liz Truss as a leader who delivers, and does what she promises.
He says that Truss promised to tackle energy prices and she promised to reverse the national insurance increase. Did she deliver? Yes.
He goes on:
There you have it. Conference will fondly remember another great female prime minister who like to say to the EU, “No, no, no.” Watch out Sir Humphrey. You’ve just got the “Yes, yes, yes” prime minister.
(If Berry had remembered the scene from When Harry Met Sally, or Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, he might have phrased that differently.)
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Brown warns that financial crisis triggered by rising interest rates may not yet be over
In his Today interview Gordon Brown also warned that he did not think the financial crisis was over. Rising interest rates could clobber institutions in the “shadow banking” sector, he suggested. He told the programme:
You’ve got problems with inflation, potentially problems with liquidity and solvency amongst companies. And you’ve got the potential for markets to be dysfunctional.
And I would be worried about the shadow banking - that’s the non-bank financial sector in this country.
And I would be very careful if I was the Bank of England and make sure that the supervision of that part of the economy is tightened up, because I do fear that, as inflation hits and interest rates rise, there will be a number of companies and a number of organisations that will be in grave difficulty.
So I don’t think this crisis is over because the pension funds have been rescued last week.
Brown was prime minister at the time of the global financial crisis of 2008 and he was widely praised for his bank bailout response, which was followed by other governments around the world.
Failing to uprate benefits in line with inflation would provoke 'national uprising', claims Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, said this morning that Liz Truss would provoke a “national uprising” if she refused to uprate benefits in line with inflation. Boris Johnson’s government said benefits would be uprated for 2023-24 in line with the September level of inflation (which may be close to 10%), which is the normal practice. But Truss has hinted benefits could rise in line with earnings, saving around £4bn, which would help fill the hole in government accounts left by her unfunded tax cuts.
Brown told the Today programme:
It’s divisive because we’re not in this together any more. It’s anti-work because 40% of those who would suffer are people on low pay in work. It’s anti-family because five million children would be in poverty.
And I think most of all, it’s immoral. It’s asking the poor to bear the burden for the crisis that we face in this country and for mistakes that other people have made, and it’s a scar on the soul of our country, it’s a stain on our conscience …
There will be a national uprising if this goes ahead because it is nothing to do with making the growth policies of the government work, it is simply making the poor pay the price.
Failure to increase benefits in line with inflation is "a scar on the soul of our country"
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) October 5, 2022
Former Labour PM Gordon Brown tells @MarthaKearney "there will be a national uprising if this goes ahead...it's simply making the poor pay the price"#R4Today https://t.co/ostsYkggxZ
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These are from James Johnson, a pollster who used to work in Downing Street for Theresa May and how now runs his own research company, JL Parners.
NEW by @JLPartnersPolls, fieldwork 1st-3rd October.
— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) October 4, 2022
The British public were asked to give their view of Liz Truss in a word. These are their most common answers. 👇 pic.twitter.com/jNqHCIdtdY
Here is Keir Starmer. pic.twitter.com/qgM3uF7TGU
— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) October 4, 2022
For context, this is what views of Liz Truss were in the Red Wall *before the mini-budget*. Looks like it was the major turning point in views of the PM. pic.twitter.com/N27H0N1QVp
— James Johnson (@jamesjohnson252) October 4, 2022
In a short interview recorded at the conference yesterday, but played on the Today programme this morning, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, played down the significance of her remark yesterday accusing Michael Gove of mounting a “coup” against Liz Truss. Asked if the two had made up, Braverman said:
Well I have never broken up with Mr Gove... he’s a friend of mine.
Braverman also stressed that she was just appealing for unity. She said:
I just think that we’ve all got to get behind the prime minister. She’s early on in her tenure, we’ve had a really exhausting and exhaustive leadership contest.
A lot of these issues were aired. We all had our argy-bargy then. Now she’s got a mandate. The opposition, the enemy is Labour, it’s not within.
She also said people like Gove should express their concerns about government policy “behind closed doors”.
Cleverly claims 45% tax U-turn was necessary because of obsessive media focus on story
And here are some more lines from James Cleverly’s morning interview round.
Cleverly, the foreign secretary, said it was the obsessive media focus on the ab abolition of the 45% top rate of tax in the mini-budget that led to the government abandoning it, in a huge U-turn. He told Sky News:
What you’re describing as a U-turn is the smallest element of a really big and significant support package to families, tax cut to families, stimulus package for the British economy.
You guys were constantly talking about the 45p tax rate, which is why we had to take it away, so that us guys could talk about the 95% of that package which was about cutting tax for working families, support for people trying to pay their energy bills, giving growth zones around the country, infrastructure investment for transport which unlocks the growth in the economy - that’s what we wanted to talk about and that’s what we will talk about.
Cleverly is ignoring the fact that the media were focusing on the 45% tax rate decision because Tory MPs, and the country at large, were outraged about it.
He predicted that the Tories would recover their standing in the polls. He told Times Radio:
This is a blip. It’s a necessary blip, but I’m absolutely confident when people see that growth, when they see their wages increase, when they see productivity increases, when they see the new rail, roads, when they feel those tax cuts, those voters will start coming back to us.
He refused to endorse what Suella Braverman, the home secretary, said yesterday about Tory MPs opposed to the 45% top rate of tax decision being engaged in a coup. He said Braverman “chose the words that she chose”, and he did not endorse them himself.
He said people should not be surprised by what Truss was doing because she set out her agenda very clearly during the Tory leadership contest. He said:
The prime minister made it really clear what her philosophy was when she was running for the leadership. If people weren’t listening properly, I mean that’s more their problem than hers. She said that she was going to go for growth. She said she wanted to increase investment.
Truss to tells Tories there can be no more 'drift and delay' as government focuses on growth
And here are two more extracts from Liz Truss’s speech briefed to the media in advance. The PM will explain why she is focusing on growth (using an argument she has used many times before) and she will say there cannot be any more “drift and delay”.
For too long, our economy has not grown as strongly as it should have done. For too long, the political debate has been dominated by how we distribute a limited economic pie. Instead, we need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice. That is why I am determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low-growth cycle. That is what our plan is about: getting our economy growing and rebuilding Britain through reform …
This is a great country. But I know that we can do better and we must do better. We have huge talent across the country. We’re not making enough of it. To deliver this, we need to get Britain moving. We cannot have any more drift and delay at this vital time.
This is from my colleague Pippa Crerar on the “whenever there is change, there is disruption” line in Liz Truss’s speech.
10 days ago Kwasi Kwarteng said there was “more to come” on fiscal changes and pound tanked.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 5, 2022
Liz Truss will go one step further on Wednesday, telling Tory conference: “Whenever there is change, there is disruption.”
Some Tory MPs questioning the wisdom of her framing.
And this is from the Economist’s Anne McElvoy making a similar point.
One (among a few) oddities in the govt's communicaton is using "disruption" as a positive. Schumpeterian yes, but to most voters "disruption" suggests trains not running or services failing, The register is totally off kilter https://t.co/NT97cMzkE6
— anne mcelvoy (@annemcelvoy) October 5, 2022
Liz Truss to warn change brings disruption in Tory conference speech as Cleverly admits mini-budget was ‘bitter medicine’
Good morning. Later this morning Liz Truss will deliver her keynote speech winding up what has been one of the most chaotic and dysfunctional party conferences organised by any major political party for years. The only one I can remember that was remotely similar was the Tory one in Blackpool in 2003, which saw the beleagured Iain Duncan Smith receive 19 standing ovations during his “the quiet man is turning up the volume” speech. A few weeks later, Conservative MPs decided to turn down the volume on Duncan Smith for good when they voted him out. Duncan Smith was the first Conservative leader elected by a ballot of party members. MPs concluded the members had just got the decision wrong, and many may be feeling the same way about Truss, the fourth Tory leader chosen by a leadership ballot.
In extracts from her speech released overnight, Truss will restate her determination to change Britain, while admitting that change will bring “disruption”. She will say:
The scale of the challenge is immense. War in Europe for the first time in a generation. A more uncertain world in the aftermath of Covid. And a global economic crisis. That is why in Britain we need to do things differently. Whenever there is change, there is disruption. Not everyone will be in favour. But everyone will benefit from the result - a growing economy and a better future. That is what we have a clear plan to deliver.
The problem with this argument is that, by and large, people aren’t that fond of disruption. Britain in many respects is inherently conservative (one reason why it has often voted Conservative). The mini-budget was disruptive, but that contributed to mortgage products being withdrawn, and interest rates going up – triggering a fierce backlash against the Tories in the polls.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has been on the interview round this morning, and he acknowledged this when he told Times Radio the mini-budget had included “bitter-tasting medicine”. He said:
Now the simple truth is, a number of people aren’t used to hearing about the stimulating effects of tax cuts about the growth effects of reducing regulation. And quite understandably, they are reacting to that. People don’t necessarily like bitter-tasting medicine, but it will make us all collectively economically feel better. And when they do start feeling better, I have no doubt at all, that will be reflected in the polls.
Truss is due to deliver her speech in Birmingham at around 11am. Before she takes the stage, Jake Berry, the party chair, and Nadhim Zahawi, the Cabinet Office minister, are due to speak.
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Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com
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