'It feels fatal': Andrew Marr gives a brutal update on the Tory Party conference

4 October 2022, 11:30

Andrew Marr brutally sums up the Tory Party Conference

By Phoebe Dampare Osei

“I've never seen a conference dissolve quite like this one”, said Andrew Marr, as he brutally summed up the atmosphere at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.

Andrew Marr delivered a devastating takedown of the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on LBC, Marr described the conference, which started on Sunday 2nd and will finish tomorrow on the 5th, as “fatal”.

Referring to the government’s climb down on the IMF-condemned 45p tax rate cut, Nick Ferrari began: “The smell of burning rubber from that screeching U-turn the other night has now disseminated”.

“And it is choking everybody around the bars and coffee bars here Nick”, Andrew replied through their laughter.

Read more: Ready for Tories' next rebellion: Truss refuses to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation

Andrew continued: “The real question is, is this the beginning of the great unraveling of much more?”

“On almost every area that you look at, whether it's benefit cuts that you were talking with the Prime Minister about, whether it's environmental changes, whether it’s planning, whether it is fracking, you are seeing the beginnings of U-turns.”

In a further blow, he added: “The reason is that she has got her big agenda, she's got her big growth agenda. What she doesn't have, it appears, is a parliamentary majority for it”.

On the view of others at the conference who he spoke to, Andrew said: “I can’t really repeat on morning wireless what people are saying without breaking into fluent Anglo-Saxon which I’m not going to do.

“But I remember the omnishambles budget of 2012…this is a kind of omnishambles in multiple different directions. It is absolutely extraordinary. I have never seen a conference dissolve quite like this one.

“It’s a fatal tailspin then is it?” asked Nick.

“It feels fatal”, Andrew warned. “Certainly phrases like ‘the stench of death’ and ‘death spiral' and ‘death zoom' are being talked about again and again and again by level-headed people.

Read more: Liz Truss says MPs 'love her', despite senior MPs like Gove and Shapps opposing her plans

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“Don’t forget the real opponents of Liz Truss and the Conservative Party aren’t even here, they’ve stayed away”, he added in a final, foreboding conclusion.

Andrew’s summary of the sentiment at the conference was met with praise on Twitter, while others shared further concern over the government's latest economic moves.

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