Wounded Liz Truss will try to salvage Tory party conference with blistering attack on enemies of business

WOUNDED Liz Truss will try to salvage her disastrous Tory conference with an attack on the enemies of enterprise today.

The new Prime Minister is set to go on the offensive after warnings she could be ousted within weeks amid increasingly bitter party infighting.

Cabinet ministers privately think a general election next year is inevitable as the Conservatives are an “ungovernable rabble”.

But after days of civil war at the Birmingham conference, Ms Truss will double down on her dash to grow the economy with tax cuts.

She will say: “Whenever there is change, there is disruption.

“Not everyone will be in favour. But everyone will benefit.”

This morning’s address, a takedown of institutions she believes are holding Britain back, comes just a month after she took office.

But Ms Truss risks another row by hitting out at doomsday economists and her critics in think tanks and the BBC.

She will say it is time to “build a new Britain for a new era” in the face of this “anti-growth coalition”.

The PM’s speech comes as a new flank opened in the Government’s civil war with two senior Cabinet ministers turning on her for climbdown in the 45p tax rate row.

There is also continuing bickering over a real-terms cut to benefits.

Downing Street is eyeing raising Universal Credit by the rate of pay rises rather than inflation next April, with a possible saving of more than £5billion.

Former minister Michael Gove, seen out for a run in Birmingham yesterday, is leading rebel MPs.

Yesterday Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused Ms Truss of surrendering to a coup orchestrated by the left of the party.

She said she was frustrated the PM had abandoned her plan to scrap the top rate of income tax for those earning over £150,000.

Voicing her support for the toxic 45p tax cut, Ms Braverman said: “I am disappointed that members of our party staged a coup and undermined the PM in an unprofessional way.”

She was supported by Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke, who insisted: “Suella speaks a lot of good sense, as usual.”

But former pensions minister Guy Opperman reckoned: “Suella is 110 per cent wrong on this.”

And backbencher Steve Double piled in to say: “Doing what we believe to be right for our constituents is not a coup or unprofessional. It’s called doing our job as backbench MPs. If this is the approach the Cabinet take we’re in for a bumpy time.”

Trade minister Kemi Badenoch, a darling of the Tory grassroots, hit out at “inflammatory” suggestions a coup had taken place.

In a round of interviews Ms Truss insisted she had rowed back from her tax plan after listening to colleagues’ concerns.

‘WIN HEARTS AND MINDS’

The defiant PM vowed to “win hearts and minds” as she pressed on with implementing her agenda.

But Lord Frost accused Ms Truss of running an “amateurish, bungling” strategy that risked overshadowing her future plans.

Former transport secretary Grant Shapps warned her days were numbered unless she could turn around her faltering premiership, as MPs “are not going to sit on their hands” if the polls continued to tank. He said there was a window of opportunity as there were “still two years to go to another election”.

But he said the country needed “good, stable, sensible, smart government in place”.

Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith warned rebels they risked consigning the Tories to backbench oblivion with their plotting.

He told LBC: “What we’re doing if we’re not careful, is wishing ourselves into an election where we  . . . will be absolutely trounced.”

Ms Truss told Times Radio she must be given more time.

She said: “What I’m about is first of all helping people get through this very difficult winter of high energy costs — we’ve already put in place the energy price guarantee.

“Whilst at the same time getting on with getting Britain moving and growing our economy and delivering on new investment, new projects spent in the round, and I’d expect that to happen during 2023.”