I'LL GET US THROUGH TEMPEST, PM TELLS TORIES

TRUSS URGES PARTY TO STAY COURSE’ AND VOWS TO GET ECONOMY GROWING

- Nicholas Cecil, David Bond and Rachael Burford

LIZ TRUSS vowed today to get Britain through the tempest” of rising energy and mortgage bills this winter as she stuck to her growth, growth, growth” economic strategy.

In her keynote speech to the party faithful in Birmingham, the Prime Minister stressed the need to stay the course” of her radical reforms which she argued would ultimately benefit the whole of the country.

But she was engulfed in her own storm as her first conference address as PM was being over-shadowed by an extraordinary outbreak of Tory civil war.

Even Cabinet ministers clashed as Ms Truss struggled to stamp her authority on her party and rebel MPs were plotting further revolts having forced a humiliating U-turn on the 45p top tax rate.

Ms Truss, though, brushed off the swirling controversy as she focused on deliveringa _ speech which could be key to the success of her administration.

Speaking just a month after she gained the keys to No10, she was due to say: These are stormy days. In these tough times, we need to step up.

“Tam determined to get Britain moving, to get us through the tempest and put us on a stronger footing as a nation.”

With her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget of 45 billion of unfunded tax cuts having sent the pound into a nosedive, the Prime Minister who took to the stage to the sounds of Moving on Up by M People emphasised that the new Government was committed to an iron grip on the nation’s finances”.

While making no apology for the economic mayhem sparked by the mini-Budget, she was due to say: Iam clear we cannot pave the path to sustainable economic growth without fiscal responsibility.