Following a U-turn decided upon by Liz Truss the previous evening, the Government officially announced it was not going ahead with the scrapping of the 45p tax rate. In a Tweet, Kwasi Kwarteng said “We get it and we have listened”. He told the BBC the 45p rate was “becoming a huge distraction on a very strong plan.”
Whilst the papers highlighted that he would announce “we must stay the course” in his speech, his actual conference speech centred on announcing the climb-down. Meanwhile, at the Conservative Party Conference, Michelle Donelan announced GDP data rules would be scrapped, and Andrew Griffith – a Treasury minister – called for the abolition of inheritance tax.
Penny Mordaunt – a former leadership rival – and Robert Buckland, the Welsh Secretary, aimed to lead a cabinet revolt over plans to raise benefits in line with earnings. Therese Coffey told a fringe event that there was too much “variation in what patients experience” in the NHS. David Sidwick, a Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner, called for Cannabis to be made a Class A drug.
With acknowledgments to Harry Cole and James Heale‘s Out of the Blue: the Inside Story of the Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss