London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Can Liz Truss's new charm offensive win over Tory MPs?

Can Liz Truss's new charm offensive win over Tory MPs?

When a leader lets it be known they are in listening mode, or words to that effect, it usually means there is already a 170 decibel political firework display well under way.

There is and it's volcanic.

The breakdown in discipline during the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham last week was extraordinary because of its breadth: nervous activists, jittery backbenchers and disloyal cabinet ministers.

So where do we find ourselves as MPs prepare to return to Westminster?

In the words of one senior figure: "This is a party that is unstoppable when it has the will to win. But the opposite is true too, when it decides it has a death wish."

Among Liz Truss's critics, and there are many, her speech to close the party conference "bought her half a week" in the words of one.

"It wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't terrible."

But things do seem just a little cooler than they were in the hothouse of Birmingham.

The appointment of Greg Hands as international trade minister, replacing Conor Burns, is seen as good news by those wanting to see evidence the prime minister is listening.

Mr Hands was a supporter of Rishi Sunak for the party leadership, and very, very few of those MPs were given jobs in Liz Truss's government.

Bizarrely, given the prime minister has been in post for a month now, this is the first normal Westminster week of her time in office.

After the mourning period for the Queen and the party conferences, Parliament is back, and the usual weekly fixtures, such as Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday are in place.

Conservative MPs can expect a noticeable dollop of love and attention coming their way from Downing Street, with the PM leading meetings of groups of Tory MPs, Project Reassurance (my phrase, not theirs) is underway.

There will be a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning as usual.

Among many of the issues causing ructions: benefits payments, and whether Universal Credit, a benefit received by 5.6 million people, rises in line with wages or inflation.

A basket of benefits have, by law, to go up in line with prices - such as the Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Carers' Allowance and Incapacity Benefit.

But Universal Credit does not - it is a decision taken every year.

The inflation figure that the rate could be lifted by is the one for the Consumer Prices Index, in September.

Ministers will have that number by the middle of next week - and so will have, by then, a more rounded sense of how much of a cost gap there is between the two options.

The prime minister says she has not decided what to do, although my understanding is her initial hunch was to put them up by the lower amount (wages), rather than the higher, more expensive amount (prices).

But, it doesn't look like she has the numbers in Parliament to do it.

Just this morning, the former cabinet minister Sajid Javid joined those saying it must rise by the higher amount.

"The last week means the prime minister has no political space at all," one cabinet minister told me.

A final thought.

If anything you have read in the last few days sounds like a fountain of hyperbole from excitable reporters - and yes, we are occasionally guilty of a splash of excitability - just measure the depth and breadth and verbiage of the pushback in the newspapers over the weekend.

Cabinet ministers, including Penny Mordaunt, arguably the most transparently disloyal last week, pledged their loyalty.

Then there was a grandee, Sir Bill Cash; and a message from the grassroots too, in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph.

At all altitudes of the party, there is a collective attempt to discourage what some see as a lemming tendency taking grip.

It's the prime minister's job to try to turn that fatalism off.

It's one heck of a job.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×