Night of the hurried U-turn: how Truss and Kwarteng dumped their tax cut

theguardian.com:

As Liz Truss waited to take the stage at an event for northern MPs on the drinks reception circuit at the Conservative party conference on Sunday night, she was introduced enthusiastically as the “tax-cutting prime minister” by the party chair, Jake Berry.

Just over half an hour later, the prime minister set out her philosophy on taxes to the party faithful at a drinks party on the 25th floor of the upmarket Cube building in Birmingham. “Frankly, we haven’t made enough conservative arguments for the past few years,” she told them.

Tory members knocked back glasses of champagne and some compared her to Margaret Thatcher for doubling down so rigidly on her plan to cut the top 45p tax rate. Just over 12 hours earlier, Truss had insisted to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg she was standing her ground, prompting Michael Gove to go public with his criticism.

Shortly after the prime minister’s television appearance, Kwasi Kwarteng’s team sent out a preview of his conference speech in which he was due to say: “We must stay the course. I am confident our plan is the right one.”

But behind the scenes, conversations about a possible U-turn were already under way. As early as Friday, Truss and her No 10 team were calling round Tory MPs. She spoke to one former cabinet minister just as they were door-knocking constituents. “I told her I’d just been told how unfair it was that we were protecting the rich while my constituent was worried about paying their mortgage.”

Some MPs suspected something was up when the Tory whips failed to do their regular weekend ring-round to test the mood. “It seemed odd, especially after such a turbulent week,” said one. “But it also meant that they didn’t know if they had the numbers to get the policy through the