Liz Truss’s mission when she arrived at Conservative conference on Sunday with a party on the brink of mutiny was, as one source put it, “getting us out of the ditch and back on the road”.
But as MPs sloped home just four days later, the sound of two screeching U-turns was ringing in their ears and cabinet ministers fought furiously over further potential ones amid accusations of a coup.
Collective responsibility evaporated, with fringe events brimming with ministers pontificating on whether to cut the top rate of tax, axe the cap on bankers’ bonuses or raise benefits to below-inflation levels.
Watching in horror were ashen-faced backbenchers, who spent their evenings exchanging whispered confessions at dinner and drinks receptions about submitting letters of no confidence in the prime minister and how to get rid of her by Christmas.
“I would rather see Keir Starmer in No 10 than this Conservative party,” sighed one MP. A former cabinet minister also remarked, glibly: “This is the kind of chaos you only see at the end of a premiership – it’s impossible for her to recover.”
The acrimony in Birmingham could not be further from the mood of last autumn’s Conservative conference, when Boris Johnson appeared almost unstoppable – or Labour’s conference just a week ago, when it was at its most unified in years.
Truss’s team have tried to brush off the Conservatives’ depleting poll ratings and comparisons to the last time the party was ousted from power. “Keir’s no Tony Blair and Liz is no John Major,” said one Downing Street source emphatically.
But several conference attenders remarked how they felt an “opposition mindset” had descended on the party during conference, with many MPs – including the failed leadership contender Rishi Sunak – choosing to stay away.
Despite many conspicuous absences, there were some notable exceptions.
The former cabinet heavyweight Michael Gove led the agenda for two days in a row – on Sunday coming out in opposition to the 45p tax rate being abolished with a bombshell appearance on the BBC, and on Monday pushing for benefits to rise in line with inflation.
His vocal criticism and more than a dozen appearances at other fringe events gave cover to colleagues to lend their support, but wound others up. Robert Buckland, the Welsh secretary, told critics in the party to “be quiet” and not act as a “professional commentator”.
While government unity unravelled, the final drumbeats of the reshuffle continued to echo in the background, with some parliamentary private secretaries appointed during the conference. However, the long-delayed move was viewed as a sign of how difficult it had been to encourage people to fill the posts, and further depressed spirits.
For others, the conference was a victory lap. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch, who used to appear at the right-wing thinktank fringe events as government outsiders, returned triumphantly as cabinet ministers.
With a glint in his eye, Rees-Mogg relished being ribbed by the Institute for Economic Affairs’ director general, Mark Littlewood, for being more radical than he expected. “When the IEA become the Tory wets, we’re in a very good position in terms of government,” winked Rees-Mogg.
Though MPs attracted the main focus, hundreds of Conservative councillors also gathered to vent their anger at being first in the line of fire, given they face local elections in spring 2023.
“We are already looking at data and there will be a wipeout next year at this rate, all because Truss can’t communicate with people,” one senior local government figure said. “We are a party adrift of leadership heading towards an iceberg.”
Industry leaders also make up a significant contingent of delegates, and prize the access they get with cabinet ministers. But at a business dinner on Monday, Truss did not show up while Kwasi Kwarteng was said to have spoken for only a matter of seconds, with diners turfed out of the room having barely finished their mains. “My CEO was not impressed,” said one executive.
Truss’s speech closing the conference on Wednesday will be closely watched for any signs she is more willing to listen to colleagues. However, it runs the risk of being under-attended as some people have already left for home because of rail strikes. To ensure the auditorium was not embarrassingly empty, chairs of Tory associations in the West Midlands were told to ask their members to stick around.
Cabinet ministers will line the front row and applaud, putting on a united front when Truss wraps up. But the divisions were there for all to see on Tuesday, when Braverman accused some colleagues of having “staged a coup” to get the 45p tax rate reinstated, while Simon Clarke, the levelling up secretary, praised her “good sense”.
That disharmony shows no signs of abating, with MPs told they may have to wait until 23 November to hear the fully fleshed-out medium-term growth plan from Kwarteng, which will either put to bed or compound their concerns.
But with the general election likely to be about two years away, cabinet ministers are keen for Truss seriously to reassert her authority when parliament returns from recess.
“Everybody needs to get on board or we’ll have to start re-educating MPs,” one said. Another added: “We can either be a divided party and lose, or be a united party and we might win.”
But those pleas may just fall on deaf ears. One former minister warned: “It’s like waking up in the middle of the night with your house on fire and the firefighter telling you: ‘It’s all OK, just stay inside’. We’ve got to act and smash the glass.”
