Liz Truss news latest: Gove denies being ‘rebel leader’ after saying tax cut plans ‘not Conservative’

Penny Mordaunt has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the Conservative Party conference before attendees stood to sing the national anthem in praise of King Charles III.

Party members in Birmingham’s International Convention Centre (ICC) stood for a minute’s silence in memory of the late monarch.

In paying tribute on stage, Ms Mordaunt described the pledge of the monarch – who died last month aged 96 – as a “shining gift to the world”.

Ms Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, said: “It was said in the King’s death that Britain had lost its balance wheel … the world witnessed a young woman pale with grief pledge her whole life to her nation’s service.

“Her pledge turned out to be a shining gift to the world … her gift was calmness, confidence, courage.

“She enabled us to stay the course and she gave us a common bond and a common bond between us all, between nations, beyond politics, for prosperity, for security, for unity, for a United Kingdom.

“No words of mine can do justice to the depth of devotion to us.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg is caught up in a cronyism row after the partner in his investment firm was suddenly handed a peerage and made a government minister.

Dominic Johnson co-founded Somerset Capital Management with the business secretary – both making many millions from the firm, including from the pound’s plunge after the Brexit vote.

Now Mr Johnson has been appointed a minister in both the Cabinet Office and the Department for International Trade, an announcement slipped out on the government’s website revealed.

Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has more:

Mr Gove said that the government needed to stay true to the “one nation” message which won Boris Johnson a majority in 2019.

“The majority that Boris won in 2019 was a one-nation majority,” said Mr Gove. “People wanted Brexit but they also wanted levelling up, they wanted a Conservative government that was dedicated to improving the lives of those who aren’t necessarily traditional Conservative voters and certainly aren’t the wealthiest in society.

“We have got to stay true to that tradition and recognise that those who voted for us in 2019 wanted a compassionate one-nation government.”

Mr Gove said that Ms Truss had made the case for reversing rises for National Insurance and corporation tax during the Tory leadership contest but had made no mention of cuts to income tax.

And he added: “It is going to be very, very, very difficult to persuade people it is right to reduce welfare when we are also reducing taxes for the wealthiest.

“We need to make sure that the changes we make are in tune with the values that won the 2019 election, about looking after the most vulnerable in society.”

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch told a rally in Birmingham that “we are in the middle of a class struggle”.

“We pay tax to support our people not to subsidise the rich. The rich should be subsidising us,” he told protesters gathered in the city centre, where the Tory conference was getting under way.

“Ordinary men and women have got to understand we are in the middle of a class struggle now.”

He also said the last six months had shown “the decadence and corruption of the ruling class” and that the Government was “acting in the interests of their people”.

To loud cheers, he said: “We’re going to change this country, we’re going to change society.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg was booed loudly by hundreds of protesters in Birmingham.

The business secretary was escorted by several police officers as he walked across Victoria Square, where demonstrators had gathered to vent their anger at the government as the Tory conference gets under way in the city.

The crowd pursued him, jeering and booing, with some shouting “Tory scum”.

Demonstrators furious at Liz Truss’s economic plan are carrying signs reading “unelected, unaccountable, unhinged” and “wages up, bills down, Tories out”.

Conservative MPs who vote against the Liz Truss government’s plan for tax cuts will lose the whip, the party chairman Jake Berry has said.

Some Tory MPs are considering whether to vote with Labour to stop mini-Budget measures announced by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, particularly the axing of the 45p top rate of income tax.

Asked on Sky News whether this would result in them losing the party whip and being suspended, Mr Berry said, “Yes” – before urging despairing MPs to unite behind Ms Truss.

Former cabinet minister Michael Gove told the Chopper’s Politics podcast that Kwasi Kwarteng’s package of unfunded tax cuts was “worrying”.

Speaking at a live recording of the podcast at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Mr Gove said that the scale of the £45bn giveaway was a “contributory factor” in the market chaos which followed.

“The conservative approach is to make sure we have tax cuts that can be paid for,” he said.

“My worry is that we are betting too much on tax cuts when we are borrowing to pay for them. That is not conservative in my view. My other worry is if you are going to make tax changes, a 45p cut that will benefit millionaires but not ordinary people is not the right priority at this point.”

Asked if he was now a “rebel leader”, Mr Gove replied: “No. I’m just a backbencher.”

He refused to say whether he would vote with the government on the 45p tax cut.

But asked if Ms Truss should U-turn on the measure, he replied: “Yes. I think the 40 to 45p tax cut is wrong.”

The measure was “neither the right economic nor political response to the situation we face at the moment”, he said. “If a mistake has been made the right thing to do is to acknowledge that and to correct course.”

A senior member of Liz Truss’s government has said that the fall in the value of the pound is “not all bad”, claiming it has led to a surge in US tourists coming to Britain and spending on luxury goods.

Sterling plummeted to an all-time low of $1.03 against the US dollar in the wake of last week’s poorly-received, though it has since rallied to $1.12 after the Bank of England poured £65bn in to stabilise markets.

But it remains almost 30 per cent down on its value of $1.42 in the spring of 2021 and around 35 per cent down on its pre-Brexit peak of $1.71 in 2014.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has more:

Senior Conservative MP Mel Stride has said Liz Truss needs to quickly regain the confidence of the public and of the markets if she is to lead the party into the next general election.

Mr Stride, the chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, said the party will be in “hugely difficult waters” if that does not happen.

Asked on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme about Ms Truss’s prospects of leading the party into the election, he said: “For that to happen I think it is fair to say that we have to fairly quickly move to a place where the polls are beginning to turn around, where the markets are feeling the Government is behaving fiscally responsibly and they are gaining in confidence, the pressure on the pound is being released somewhat and bond yields are not soaring off.”

Mr Stride criticised Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget, saying: “I do think there are some very difficult optics, at the very least, around having the 45p rate (of tax) abolished and then seeking reductions, for example, in the welfare.”

Liz Truss has been accused of throwing chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng “under a bus” by saying the decision to cut income tax for the richest was made by him and not Cabinet.

Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary who backed Ms Truss to be prime minister, criticised her remarks made on the first day of the Tory conference in Birmingham.

The plans to abolish the 45 per cent tax rate on incomes above £150,000 a year has caused anger during the cost-of-living crisis, even among some Conservative MPs.