Liz Truss’s appearance before MPs at the 1922 committee was meant to be part of a wider charm offensive as she tries to get MPs back on side after a tricky start. With Labour enjoying a large poll lead and market turmoil dominating the news, Truss needs to keep her party behind her. Yet that is looking rather uphill. As James Forsyth reports on Coffee House, the mood amongst backbenchers leaving the meeting was (to put it politely) mixed. ‘It was painful,’ says one attendee. Other words used to describe the session include ‘awful’, ‘funereal’ and ‘brutal’.
Truss attempted to win over assembled MPs by promising further reach out and parliamentary engagement. She heralded her energy support plan as something Labour had not matched – thereby giving Tory MPs something to go out and flag to voters given the ‘devastation that would have been caused to small business had we not acted’.
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