Heseltine warns PM 'things are looking pretty bleak' ahead of election

Tory peer Lord Heseltine warns Liz Truss ‘things are looking pretty bleak’ ahead of next election as he demands to know ‘what was the plan?’ over Budget fiasco – and tells PM her Brexit bill will be ‘massacred’ in the House of Lords

• Lord Heseltine warns Liz Truss ‘things are looking pretty bleak’ ahead of election
• He says PM will need to show ‘very impressive feat of political leadership’
• Tory peer tears into Ms Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s Budget fiasco 

Tory peer Lord Heseltine today warned Liz Truss ‘things are looking pretty bleak’ ahead of the next general election as he tore into her mini-Budget fiasco.

The former Cabinet minister told the Prime Minister that ‘a very impressive feat of political leadership’ would now be needed to keep the Conservatives in power.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory conference – just hours after Ms Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng revealed they had U-turned on a controversial bid to abolish the 45p tax rate – Lord Heseltine asked: ‘What was the plan?’

He urged Mr Kwarteng to bring forward promised announcements on how his Treasury proposes to manage the public finances earlier than currently scheduled.

And, although he declined to answer questions on Ms Truss’s future as Tory leader – or Mr Kwarteng’s chances of remaining as Chancellor – the 89-year-old warned the PM of further woes to come.

Lord Heseltine claimed Ms Truss’s legislation aimed at overturning post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland would be ‘massacred’ in the House of Lords next week.

Lord Heseltine told the Prime Minister that ‘a very impressive feat of political leadership’ would now be needed to keep the Conservatives in power

The Tory peer warned Liz Truss ‘things are looking pretty bleak’ ahead of the next general election as he tore into her mini-Budget fiasco

Lord Heseltine spoke just hours after Ms Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng revealed they had U-turned on a controversial bid to abolish the 45p tax rate

In a dramatic reversal of their position, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng this morning confirmed they were ditching their plan to scrap the additional tax rate amid a backlash from growing numbers of Tory MPs and turmoil on financial markets.

They had previously hailed the proposal as part of their efforts to revive sluggish growth in Britain.

Asked how the Government could now push forward its growth agenda, Lord Heseltine told the event in Birmingham: ‘My advice to them is that the first overwhelming essential ingredient is confidence.

‘People have got to believe in the market in which they’re investing.’

He added: ‘Now, if you’re going to invest, you want to know what’s going to happen.

‘And what I can’t understand about the mini-Budget is that they are quite sure about the outcome – there’s going to be faster growth, who’s against that?

‘But what was the plan? They either had a plan – in which case why didn’t they publish it? 

‘Or the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had a plan, which we’re told they did, so why didn’t they publish that? Or perhaps there was no plan – and that is serious.’

Lord Heseltine claimed it would be ‘wrong’ for the Chancellor to wait until 23rd November to publish full OBR economic forecasts and deliver a full fiscal statement, as he is planning.

As she looks to revive her political fortunes after a turbulent start to her premiership, the Tory veteran also advised Ms Truss to ‘take the talent off the back benches, not the cronies off the back benches’ in her management of the Conservative Party,

Asked if the Tories could win the next election, Lord Heseltine replied: ‘Things are looking pretty bleak.

‘So it will require a very impressive feat of political leadership. And it needs to start today, like this afternoon!’

Lord Heseltine, a leading Remainer, also insisted that – if the Tories did lose the next election – then the party’s position on Brexit would soon come under scrutiny.

‘If, heaven forfend, the party were to lose, then there would be an investigation as to why and Europe will come up high on the agenda,’ he said. 

‘I have no doubt at all that this country will, in the reasonable future, take its part in the community of Europe where we belong.’

In a message to those, like him, who want to see Britain one day rejoin the EU, Lord Heseltine added: ‘The Brexiteers were always there and never gave up.

‘So that’s the first lesson of politics – you don’t win a democratic majority by being silent, you have to fight your corner.’

He also warned Ms Truss of further strife to come, as Remainer peers such as him plot to block the PM’s legislation aimed at unilaterally overturning key parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

‘I think if the Government is looking for a U-turn, it should pull the legislation from the House of Lords tomorrow,’ he said.

‘It’s going to get massacred in the House of Lords anyway.’

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