Liz Truss news – latest: PM vows to lead Tories into next election despite ‘mistakes’

Liz Truss is fighting for her political life as the fallout from her disastrous mini-Budget continues.

The powerful 1922 Committee of Conservative back-benchers – which organises leadership contests – has already reportedly held secret talks about removing the prime minister.

Jeremy Hunt, who Ms Truss appointed as chancellor after dispatching her “friend” Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, is one of the names being suggested to take over.

Matt Mathers has the latest:

Liz Truss has reflected on a “tough” start to her premiership, admitting things have been “difficult” in Downing Street as her tax-cutting agenda has crumbled around her.

Faced with questions over her credibility in the top job following a raft of U-turns culminating in the near-extinction of her economic plans, the prime minister acknowledged she has made “mistakes”, adding that things have not been “perfect”.

Speaking to the BBC, she said she cares “deeply” about the country’s success, and that is what motivates her.

The prime minister is seeking to shore up her authority after she sacked her former chancellor and abandoned her economic agenda in a bonfire of tax-cutting policies, sparking questions over her mandate to lead.

She will rally her cabinet at a meeting today following an informal reception with senior ministers over drinks and nibbles in Downing Street last night.

Ms Truss has suggested she believes she can weather the storm that has rocked the party in recent weeks, as she vowed to lead the Tories into the next general election.

Wages are to drop by £4,000 in real terms over the next three years, according to new analysis by the TUC, which is also warning ministers that it will take legal action if they weaken workers’ rights.

Workers are on course for two decades of “lost living standards” and the “longest squeeze” in earnings in modern history under the “toxic” Conservative government, the TUC’s general secretary is to say.

On Tuesday, Frances O’Grady is to address trade union delegates at the TUC conference in Brighton, where she will say that workers “have been pushed to breaking point” after the “longest wage squeeze since Napoleonic times”.

Liz Truss’s new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has ditched further tax cuts introduced by his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng as part of the disastrous “mini-Budget” he unveiled on 23 September – which spooked the markets with £45bn in unfunded tax cuts – during an emergency statement in which he also dramatically scaled back support for household energy bills from two years to six months.

Mr Hunt, who was only appointed on Friday, said he would be abandoning plans to cut the basic rate of tax by 1p, which had been due to be brought forward to April, and that it would remain at 20p in the pound until the country can afford to reduce it.

The cut in dividend tax promised by Mr Kwarteng will also go, along with VAT-free shopping for overseas tourists, the freeze on alcohol duty and the easing of the IR35 rules for the self-employed.

Liz Truss has apologised for the “mistakes” she made in her first few weeks in office, but has vowed she will lead the Conservative Party into the next general election.

The prime minister spoke on Monday evening, hours after she failed to appear for urgent questions in the House of Commons.

“I do want to accept responsibility and say sorry for the mistakes that have been made,” Ms Truss said.

Liz Truss has said she will lead the Conservatives into the next general election – as a new poll shows her party faces a wipeout.

In an interview with the BBC on Monday evening, the prime minister blamed “circumstances” for having to U-turn on virtually her entire political programme.

But said she still believed in her small-state economic philosophy and only admitted that she had gone “too far and too fast”.

Ben Wallace has said he wants to remain as defence secretary and pleaded with Tory colleagues to “stop playing political parlour games”.

Mr Wallace, who has been touted as a possible Tory leader and prime minister, told The Times: “The public wants stability and security and if the Government fails to deliver that then they will send us into opposition.”

Asked if he wanted to be PM, he said: “I want to be the Secretary of State for Defence until I finish. I love the job I do and we have more to do. I want the Prime Minister to be the Prime Minister and I want to do this job.”

He added: “I say to the colleagues who think our role is to feed the instability within the party, by proposing other people as leaders no matter who they are, (you) are doing a disservice.

“The markets are responding at the moment in the UK to unsurety about the government. The best way to give those markets some confidence is for people to stop playing political parlour games.”

More than 630,000 people have signed a petition to “let the people decide who leads us through this turmoil”.

This is eight times the number of people who voted for Liz Truss to lead the Conservative Party and become prime minister, a Labour MP said.

But Cabinet Office minister Brendan Clarke-Smith rejected the idea of holding a general election earlier than the scheduled next date of 2024.

Opening the debate in Westminster Hall in Parliament, Catherine McKinnell – MP for Tyne North – said: “The numbers make this one of the most popular petitions considered by the Petitions Committee to date.

“The over 632,000 people that have signed this petition represent nearly eight times the number who voted for our current Prime Minister.”

Mr Clarke-Smith said that the government continues to command the confidence of the House of Commons and should continue.

He said the government is offering “stability”, which he warned could be undermined by a general election that risked “letting the anti-growth coalition into power”.