Liz Truss admits she should have ‘laid ground better’ before mini-budget and says cabinet not consulted about 45% top rate tax cut – live

Good morning. During the Tory leadership contest an internal Labour party document, leaked to the media, said that the election of Liz Truss could deliver a 10-point boost in the polls. The briefing, which was received with some scepticism, was intended to stop Labour getting complacent, and it was based on historical figures showing that in the past having a new prime minister normally has resulted in a bounce in the poll. It is now clear that the memo was much more prophetic than anyone realised – only it is Labour that is benefiting from the bounce, not the Conservative party, and that the bounce is worth much more than 10 points.

Of course, it was the mini-budget, not Truss’s election as Tory leader, that made the difference, but that distinction won’t be much consolation to Conservative MPs as they start their conference today in Birmingham. The main divide in the party at the moment is probably between those who think that the damage done by the mini-budget to Truss’s premiership is terminal, and those who think there is some slight chance of recovery.

Here are the latest polling figures from Opinium, which are covered in the Observer.

Truss will be on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg later. (The programme starts at 8.30am, but Truss will probably be on soon after 9am.) It will be her first in-depth TV interview since the mini-budget debacle, and she will be hoping it goes better than her local radio media round on Thursday.

She has given an indication of what she is likely to say in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in which she insisted that she was going to retain all the measures announced in the mini-budget (many Tories want her to shelve, or abandon, the abolition of the 45% top rate of income tax) and said that Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, was doing “an excellent job”.

Stressing her belief that economic change is necessary, and her desire to “bring people with me on this journey”, Truss also claimed her critics were “declinist”. She told the Sunday Telegraph:

It’s a declinist mentality, the idea that Britain’s best days are behind us and that all this is about is managing the distribution between people, rather than growing the size of the pie. I believe we can grow the size of the pie. But we need to take the tough decisions to do that.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Jake Berry, chair of the Conservative party, is among the guest on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

8.30am: Liz Truss is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is also being interviewed.

From 12pm: Conference fringe events start.

3pm: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, takes part in an ‘in conversation’ fringe event organised by the Tory thinktank Onward.

4pm: The formal conference proceedings start, with speeches from Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons; Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands; Jake Barry, chair of the party; Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland secretary; Douglas Ross, Scottish Conservative leader; Andrew RT Davies, Welsh Conservative leader; Robert Buckland, Welsh secretary; and Ben Wallace, defence secretary.

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