Minister tries to defend Truss by saying cabinet failed to realise mini-budget would backfire – UK politics live

The YouGov poll also suggests that, if Truss were to stand down, party members think the best option would be for MPs to agree on a single unity candidate as a replacement. This is what happened in 2003, when Iain Duncan Smith lost a confidence vote and was replaced by Michael Howard.

Some MPs have been worried about the membership feeling snubbed if they were to be shut out of the selection process in this way, but the YouGov poll suggests that members would prefer MPs to select a unity candidate than a normal contest. This probably reflects their fear that another contest so soon after the last one would look ridiculous.

Members think the worst option would be for MPs to hold a contest, but for members to be refused a say as a result of an agreement that the runner-up in the parliamentary contest would withdraw from the contest at that point. This is what happened in 2016, when Theresa May became leader after Andrea Leadsom pulled out once she was on the final ballot. Leadsom’s decision was a personal one, which took the party by surprise. But some MPs have floated the idea that, if Truss does resign, candidates should only be allowed to stand on condition that they would accept the winner of the MPs’ ballot.

A majority of Conserative party members – including 39% of members who voted for her in the summer – think Liz Truss should resign, according to new polling from YouGov.

In his analysis of the polling, YouGov’s Matthew Smith says 55% figure for members who say Truss should resign is similar to 59% who wanted Boris Johnson to quit shortly before he did announce his departure.

Asked who should replace Truss if she were to resign in the next few weeks, Boris Johnson came top (on 32%), ahead of Rishi Sunak (23%) and Ben Wallace (10%).

But the poll also suggests that members would be almost equally happy with either Johnson, Wallace or Sunak. Penny Mordaunt and Jeremy Hunt are not far behind.

Headteachers in England are to be balloted on industrial action in a row over pay and funding, the school leaders’ union has said.

As PA Media reports, speaking at the TUC conference in Brighton, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said the union’s members have told him they “cannot continue to run their schools in the current circumstances, and “neglect” of pay and funding is “eroding” education.

He said he has written to Kit Malthouse, the education secretary, to say they are “officially in dispute” and school leaders across England and Wales will be balloted.

The NAHT said a survey responded to by 64% of its members found 84% of respondents indicated they wanted to be balloted on taking action short of a strike, with 55% wanting to be balloted on taking strike action.

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, has called for a general election now.

In her final speech to a TUC conference before she stands down, O’Grady told delegates in Brighton:

Some say Liz Truss must go. I think they’re wrong. This whole rotten Tory government must go. The Tories are toxic. It’s time for change. We need a general election now.

O’Grady described the government’s plan to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses, while public sector pay is being held down, as “Robin Hood in reverse”. She went on:

I have a message for Liz Truss: working people are proud of the jobs we do; we work hard. We work the longest hours in Europe.

Yet, thanks to your party’s 12 years in government, millions are struggling to make ends meet. We don’t need lectures on working harder. This country needs a proper plan for fairer, greener growth.

She also said it was not a time for pay restraint.

It’s time for profit restraint. Taxpayers helped business with their bills. Now it’s time to make business play their part. No lay-offs this winter. No boardroom bonanzas and no shareholder sprees. Put the cap back on the bankers’ bonuses. Let’s have a bigger windfall tax on greedy energy giants, and don’t just bail out them out – bring them into public ownership.

In the Conservative leadership contest in the summer, Liz Truss was strongly endorsed by all the main pro-Tory newspapers. The Times did back Rishi Sunak, but it is not pro-Tory in the way that the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail are, and is better understood as a pro-establishment paper.

But now two of the most influential rightwing papers, the Daily Mail and the Sun, have all but given up on her. They are both saying that if Truss cannot rescue the situation quickly, the Tories should replace her.

In its leader this morning, the Daily Mail says that Truss’s authority is “as good as shot” and that it may be time for her party to get rid of her. It says.

By lurching from crisis to self-inflicted crisis, the Conservatives risk irrevocable damage to the party, its electoral fortunes and, as a result, the whole country.

It’s time for the wise men and women of the Conservative party to decide whether the loss of confidence in Miss Truss is terminal. If it is, they must come to a solution – and fast – that can command the support of MPs and millions of Tory voters looking on in horror.

The editorial appears alongside an article by Stephen Glover saying that Truss’s stint as PM is “plainly over” and suggesting she should stand aside for someone else. As Alan Rusbridger, the former Guardian editor points out, today’s editorial (on the right) is a contrast with what the Mail was saying about Truss in the summer (on the left).

The Sun’s editorial says much the same. Describing the thought of Truss taking PMQs tomorrow as “almost tragic”, it says Rishi Sunak or Ben Wallace would be preferable. It says:

So what happens next? The thought of a broken PM having to appear at PMQs tomorrow is almost tragic. Yet allies insist she wants to fight on — and Tory MPs have no clear plan to replace her.

What is not needed now is either an election, or another interminable leadership contest.

If Truss cannot quickly sort herself out, the grown-ups need to get in a room with 1922 Committee chairman, Graham Brady, and agree a peaceful transition to a sensible figure like Rishi Sunak or Ben Wallace.

This is from my colleague Pippa Crerar.

This morning’s papers make dire reading for No 10. My colleague Samantha Lock has a summary.

Wallace cancels select committee appearance for urgent trip to US

Dan Sabbagh

Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.

James Heappey, a defence minister, said “my boss Ben Wallace is in Washington this morning” in an interview in Sky News and offered a cryptic explanation of his presence there. He suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.

Heappey also said that the MoD was doing “a good job keeping our nation safe at a time of incredible global insecurity” – although it was unclear exactly what he may been referring to.

A day earlier, questions were raised after a beleaguered Liz Truss did not appear in the Commons to handle an urgent question about the conduct of her government. Penny Mordaunt, deputising, had told MPs she had a “genuine reason” for not being present – but the reason was not explained and it is not clear if it is related to Wallace’s sudden travel.

Wallace had been due to take questions from the committee on a range of issues, including political engagement with the US administration on military operations, the W93 nuclear missile and US protectionism and export controls.

James Heappey, the defence minister, has suggested he would resign if the prime minister did not fulfil her leadership promise to raise defence spending, after the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said no department would be immune to cuts. My colleague Jessica Elgot has the story here.

Here are some more lines from James Heappey’s morning interview round on the Tory leadership crisis.

• Heappey, a defence minister, said Liz Truss could not afford to make any more mistakes. Asked how many more errors she could make, he told Sky News: “I suspect given how skittish our politics are at the moment, not very many,” he said. Pressed how many, he said: “I don’t think there’s the opportunity to make any more mistakes.”

She’s very much our prime minister and for what it’s worth I think she’s doing a good job.

There are a few colleagues in parliament who are irreconcilable and the government needs to work to bring them back into the fold as best we can.

But the vast majority of colleagues recognise that after the last few months – indeed after the last year when we’ve been going through all of the angst over Boris Johnson, which has divided our party deeply – what we cannot do is reverse the decision of a leadership election that we’ve literally only just completed.

Most journalists who have spent time talking to Tory MPs in private in recent days say the opposite. They say Conservatives do want a new leader, although there is no consensus as to who is should be, how he or she should be installed, or when.

Liz Truss is now more unpopular than any British political leader has been in the past 20 years, according to the polling firm YouGov. It has released new figures that suggest her net favourability rating is -70.

The findings are good for Keir Starmer, whose net favourability score is much higher than those of four leading Tory rivals.

In his write-up of the findings, YouGov’s Peter Raven says both Truss and Starmer have lower net favourability ratings than their parties. But Truss is a lot more unpopular than her party, whereas Starmer is only marginally more unpopular than his. And the Labour party is viewed far, far more favourably than the Conservative party.

The prime minister is also less well-liked than the Conservative party as a whole, which has a net favourability score of -53, down from -44 in the previous poll. The party is considered favourable by 18% of the British public, down from 22% earlier in the month.

Labour leader Keir Starmer continues to be considerably less unpopular than his Conservative rivals, with 41% of people liking him and 46% disliking him, a net score of -5. Labour themselves are slightly more popular still, with 45% having a favourable opinion of the party compared to 44% who don’t, giving a net score of +1.

This point is important because it suggests that, although the Tory brand is deeply unpopular, having Truss as leader in election campaign would hold it back even more.

YouGov’s Patrick English says “by some distance” Truss is the most unpopular leader the company has tracked since it was set up in 2000.

Good morning. Liz Truss finally did something half-sensible last night and apologised for the problems caused by the mini-budget. It is not clear yet what, if anything, this will do to improve her survival prospects, and in her interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason she also said that she would “lead the Conservatives into the next general election”.

In normal circumstances, this would be a mistake, because fighting an election with her as leader is the last thing that Tory MPs want, and unpopular prime ministers who insist that they want to “go on and on” normally only incentivise those plotting to get rid of them. Boris Johnson did not do himself any favours by musing about serving a third term in the summer, only weeks before he was forced out. But when Mason asked Truss if she would “definitely” still be leader at the time of the next election, she paused and then laughed, before saying something about not wanting to focus on internal Tory debates. It was a rare moment of self-awareness that signalled to viewers – and Tory MPs – that her answer was a formality, and that she did not actually believe it.

James Heappey, the defence minister, has been giving interviews this morning, and he has followed the interview with lines that were intended to be helpful to Truss but that could turn out to be counterproductive. There were two that stood out.

• Heappey claimed that Truss deserved credit for admitting that she made a mistake with the mini-budget. He told Sky News that her apology to the public was “a contrast to a year ago when the previous prime minister’s woes began” and Boris Johnson refused to apologise for Partygate. Heappey went on:

She has fronted up to her mistake very quickly and there are people in the parliamentary party who don’t want that to be the end of it. But for an awful lot of us we recognise this is a moment when this country needs its government to knuckle down and get back on with the day job.

But Truss did not accept that she had made a mistake quickly. At the Conservative party conference two weeks ago, when it was already clear that the mini-budget had alarmed the financial markets, Truss used her interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg to say that it was the presentation of the mini-budget that was at fault, not the substance, and she implied the market turmoil was mostly a result of global factors. And even on Friday last week, at the press conference following the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng, when Truss was specifically asked if she would apologise for what happened, she refused.

• Heappey said that no one in the cabinet realised the mini-budget would backfire in the way that it did. Heappey, who attends cabinet even though he is not a full member, told Times Radio:

It’d be completely disingenuous to claim that on that morning, when the cabinet was presented with the mini-budget, that there was anybody sat around the table who said that it was a bad idea. Each and every one of the measures within it were coherent with a desire to drive growth.

I think what the cabinet failed collectively to recognise is that it was an awful lot of measures being unleashed simultaneously on unsuspecting markets. And the reaction from the markets is clear.

This may be true. But it does not reflect well on the cabinet as a whole, and it highlights the fact that Truss’s cabinet did not include her leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, who predicted exactly what would happen if Truss introduced policies like this. He told Tories in the summer:

The lights on the economy are flashing red, and the root cause is inflation. I’m worried that Liz Truss’s plans will make the situation worse. If we just put fuel on the fire of this inflation spiral, all of us, all of you, are going to just end up with higher mortgage rates, savings and pensions that are eaten away, and misery for millions.

I will post more from Heappey’s interviews shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Liz Truss chairs cabinet.

11am: Frances O’Grady, the outgoing TUC general secretary, addresses the rescheduled TUC conference.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 12.30pm: MPs debate the remaining stages of the public order bill.

2.30pm: Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee.

5pm: Truss is due to hold a private meeting with Tory MPs from the European Research Group.

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