Liz Truss news – live: Michael Gove says removing PM is ‘a matter of when, not if’

Liz Truss has recruited a key member of Boris Johnson’s inner circle in a bid to shore up her tottering premiership following the collapse of her flagship economic policies.

Addressing MPs on the Brexiteer right of the Conservative Party on Tuesday evening, Ms Truss was accompanied by the former PM’s deputy chief of staff, combative election strategist David Canzini, who aides confirmed had started working with her earlier that day.

The meeting with the European Research Group – at which Ms Truss said it had been “painful” to give up the tax-cutting policies that had been included in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget – came on the eve of Wednesday’s crucial session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, at which Ms Truss hopes to shake off the impression that she is a passenger in a government now led by chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

But one Tory MP told The Independent that no amount of improvement on her previously wooden PMQs performances can save her now.

“It’s irrecoverable,” said the backbencher. “She’s toast; it’s just a matter of when the toaster pops. No-one expects her to be great at PMQs; if she’s good it might buy her a bit of time, but if she has a really bad time, that could be the end of her. If I was Keir Starmer, I’d go easy on her.”

Welsh Secretary Sir Robert Buckland warned Tory MPs considering ousting Liz Truss as prime minister to “be careful what you wish for”.

The Cabinet minister told BBC Newsnight: “The more the Conservative Party change leaders, the stronger the case for a general election becomes.

“Now the Labour Party want the Conservatives to chop and change another leader because they think that their best opportunity is an early election.

“I say to my colleagues, be careful what you wish for. An early election serves nobody any good, not least the Conservative Party and certainly not the country.”

Alastair Campbell joins The Independent’s call for an election.

He writes: Four prime ministers in six years. Four chancellors of the Exchequer in as many months. Even Greece, mid-meltdown, couldn’t get close to that.

The people who gave us this disaster are not the people to get us out of it. The idea that they should be able to install a fifth prime minister without reference to the general public is a democratic obscenity.

Read more from Alastair Campbell here:

Jacob Rees-Mogg is facing legal action over his decision to lift the moratorium on fracking in England (Andrew Woodcock writes).

Environmental and community groups have sent a legal letter, seen by The Independent, to notify the business secretary of their intention to seek judicial review of his decision, on the grounds that it was “unlawful” to reverse the 2019 ban on the controversial gas extraction method without fresh scientific evidence to prove it is safe.

The move by Friends of the Earth, Talk Fracking and Preston New Road Action Group comes as MPs vote on a Labour bid to ban fracking “once and for all” through a parliamentary vote.

A former work and pensions secretary has added his voice to growing Tory opposition against Liz Truss’s potential ditching of her commitment to increase state pensions in line with inflation.

Stephen Crabb told The Telegraph: “This is not the time to consider abandoning the triple lock, especially after such clear promises were made following the last temporary pause.

“Maintaining the value of the state pension during the cost-of-living crisis is essential.”

Downing Street today indicated that ministers may drop the triple-lock on state pensions, which binds the government to raise payments in line with the highest of 2.5 per cent, inflation or wages.

People in Liz Truss’s constituency of South West Norfolk have given damning reviews of their MP’s time as prime minister so far.

After just six weeks in office, Ms Truss’s premiership has been turbulent, with the mini-Budget sending the pound tumbling and a number of Conservative MPs publicly calling for her resignation.

Here’s what the locals think of their representative:

It’s time for the people to have their say.

Here is why The Independent is calling for a general election:

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt met Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, today.

Treasury sources confirmed the meeting, saying it was a briefing ahead of Mr Hunt’s 1922 appearance on Wednesday.

It comes after Sir Graham met Liz Truss on Monday, an encounter No 10 said was “pre-planned” and during which her lack of support from Conservative MPs likely came up.

More than 100 MPs are reportedly ready to submit letters of no-confidence to Sir Graham in a bid to oust the PM.

The political activist group Led by Donkeys has gone viral with a new video in which three of its members scale a ladder to place a mock blue plaque on the exterior of 55 Tufton Street in Westminster, central London, a Georgian townhouse serving as home to a number of right-wing think-tanks popular with Liz Truss (Joe Sommerlad writes).

“The UK economy was crashed here,” the commemorative sign reads, giving the date as 23 September 2022, the day on which Ms Truss’s now-ex chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his disastrous, uncosted “mini-Budget”, which proposed reckless tax cuts and heavy borrowing at a time of high inflation.

Mr Kwarteng’s fiscal programme – undeniably radical but deeply misguided, as it turned out – is understood to have been developed with the prime minister, a friend and neighbour from the so-called “Greenwich set”, but only served to spook global financial markets, forcing Ms Truss into a series of embarrassing policy U-turns and the Bank of England to buy up huge amounts of government debt to prop up pension funds.

Senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood said Liz Truss conducted an “experiment” with the economy that failed.

But he said there was a “calmer Westminster” on Tuesday compared to the past few days and weeks, as “we have got back to understanding what the Conservatives usually do well”.

The defence committee chair, who recently had the Tory whip restored after being suspended for missing a confidence vote in Boris Johnson’s government, told Channel 4 News: “There’s no doubt about it, it’s been an experiment we’ve conducted with the economy and it’s not gone well. And there’s a recognition that we now need to reboot, we need to reset, we need to regroup.”

He added: “The mechanics in which we chose our leader, I think, is the core problem that [meant] we ended up where we are today.

“If you only ask our membership which direction they want to go, you’re going to get particular answers. And what was clear is that growth productivity has been a problem in the UK going back to 2008.

“Liz Truss presented a package of measures which clearly were too radical, they didn’t include an understanding of the international headwinds.”