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

Mel Stride, the Conservative chair of the Commons Treasury committee, told Sky News that if the governmement publishes the new forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility before 3 November, when the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) is due to make its next interest rate decision, that might lead to the interest rate rise being lower than it otherwise would be. He said:

If [the MPC] has a satisfactory OBR report before that meeting on November 3, I would imagine and expect that the interest rate rise will probably not be as high as it otherwise would be.

That OBR report, the fiscal targets, would have reassured the markets, there would be less concern about the inflationary impacts of the government’s policy and therefore the MPC would be putting interest rates up by potentially a little bit less.

At the moment the government is not due to publish the new OBR forecast until the medium-term fiscal plan comes out, on 23 November.

And this is what political journalists and commentators are saying about the Liz Truss interview on Twitter.

From my colleague Gaby Hinsliff

From Lucy Fisher from Times Radio

From ITV’s Paul Brand

From the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman

From the Sun’s Harry Cole

From the i’s Paul Waugh

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From Jon Sopel from the News Agents podcast

From the broadcasting executive Rob Burley

From Andrew Marr of the New Statesman and LBC

From GB News’ Tom Harwood

From my colleague Zoe Williams

From Huffpost UK’s Kevin Schofield

From the Observer’s Sonia Sodha

From the journalist Ian Birrell

Liz Truss told the Sunday Telegraph that Kwasi Kwarteng was doing an “excellent job” as chancellor.

But in her interview with Laura Kuenssberg, when asked about the decision to cut the top rate of income tax, Truss described it has Kwarteng’s decision, not hers. Asked if the whole cabinet had discuss this, she replied:

No, no we didn’t. It was a decision the chancellor made.

This is being interpreted as a hint that Kwarteng is being lined up to take the blame. It would be hard for Truss to sack Kwarteng over the 45% top rate decision when she appointed him and approved it herself, but she would not be the first prime minister to sack a chancellor for implementing a policy favoured by No 10. Ask Norman Lamont.

In what may or may not be relevant, Tim Shipman reports in the Sunday Times today that it was Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury and Kwarteng’s deputy, who “during the leadership election wrote a paper for Truss recommending the abolition of the 45p tax rate”.

When politicians make mistakes, their natural inclination is to refuse to admit it, but the smart PR advice is almost always to offer some sort of apology, or admission of error. This is useful mainly because it is what voters want to hear. But it can also draw a line under the controversy, it stops the media banging on about “When are you going to admit that you made a mistake?” and it allows you to move on.

Liz Truss arrived for her interview this morning with a play of this kind up her sleeve. It was not an apology, but it was an admission of error. Talking about the disastrous impact the mini-budget had on the financial markets, she said:

I do stand by the package we announced and I stand by the fact we announced it quickly, because we had to act.

But I do accept we should have laid the ground better … I have learnt from that and I will make sure that in future we do a better job of laying the ground.

This went further than what she has said before about the mini-budget. But it was about the feeblest form of “admission of error” conceivable, for three reasons. First, she was using a term that does not mean much to many people anyway (‘“laid the ground better” – what David Cameron used to call “pitch-rolling”). Second, later in the interview she came close to contradicting herself, implying that it did not really matter what people thought anyway. She said:

What I care about is making our country successful, making our economy successful. And I do think that there has been too much focus in politics about the optics or how things look, as opposed to the impact they have on our economy.

But the third and most important point of all is that Truss was not making any concessions on substance. At no point did she accept that any of the decisions in her mini-budget were wrong. She implied it was just a matter of presentation.

The problem with this is that, as Michael Gove rather brutally pointed out immediately afterwards, that Tory MPs think otherwise. We cannot know for sure, but it seems likely that Gove was talking for a majority of Conservative MPs – perhaps even the vast majority? – when he said that abolishing the top rate of income tax now was indefensible.

And that is why this was an interview that does not really help, and that still leaves her struggling at this conference to convince her party that she is not finished for good. (See 8.29am.) This interview was not a car crash in the way the local radio interview round was on Thursday. But equally it was not one that will help her much, if at all.

Gove says he is sure Liz Truss will be PM this time next year.

But there does need to be a “course correction”, he says. He says “reality bites”.

He says the medium-term fiscal plan, scheduled for late November, will have to be brought forward.

Q: You are being quite critical this week. Are you trying to be helpful?

Yes, he says.

Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, is still in the studio. Laura Kuenssberg asks him for his reaction. And it is brutal.

He starts by saying he was glad to hear Truss acknowledge that the events of the mini-budget need to be revisited. (She did not quite say that.)

But he says there is an “inadequate realisation” at the top of government of the scale of the problem.

There is an inadequate realisation at the top of government of the scale of change required.

He says 35% of the borrowing in the mini-budget was for unfunded tax cuts.

That is not conservative, he says.

And it is wrong to cut the top rate of income tax when people are suffering. He says cutting tax for the wealthiest “is a display of the wrong values”.

Ultimately, at a time when people are suffering … when you have additional billions of pounds in play, to have as your principal decision cutting taxes for the wealthiest, that is a display of wrong values.

Q: It sounds like you won’t be able to vote for this?

Gove says he does not believe the move is right.

Q: What is the logic of helping people with their energy bills if their mortgage costs go up more?

Truss says interest rates are set by the Bank of England.

Q: But do you accept some people will be worse off?

Truss says the government is helping homeowners, with things like the stamp duty cut. She says interest rates are set by the Bank of England. They are dependent on the global situation.

Interest rates are rising around the world, she suggests.

Q: How do you think people will feel about the top rate of tax being cut while spending for poorer people?

Truss says she thinks there has been “too much focus” in politics on “how things look”, and not on whether decisions are right.

It is important to reverse two decades of low growth, she says.

Q: How do you think it looks for Kwasi Kwarteng to be having drinks on the day of the mini-budget with hedge fund managers?

Truss says Kwarteng meets business people the whole time. She does not manage his diary.