A disastrous conference may force the prime minister into a humiliating return to the moderate Toryism she rejected
There are two phases to any project, launch and relaunch. After the wreckage of her party conference last week, few relaunches are more urgent than that signalled by Liz Truss’s cry that she “gets it”. Forget any charm offensive. She must dismantle – call it redefine – her rejection of Boris Johnson’s moderate Toryism, approved by the electorate in 2019, and must do it fast.
Truss has shown she can do it. A late-night Birmingham hotel meeting was enough to get her to ditch her controversial cut in the 45p top rate of tax. A similar crisis now looms over whether the upcoming increase in welfare benefits should be tied to inflation or earnings, that is, a 10% or 5% rise. Truss is tentatively committed to the latter.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
