The PM spoke with conviction and confidence and managed to cheer the Tory grassroots - Bill Carmichael

Liz Truss is certainly no orator but she spoke with conviction and confidence and she managed to cheer the Conservative grassroots who, until then, had suffered a pretty miserable experience at their annual conference in Birmingham this week.

The market reaction to the Chancellor’s mini-budget two weeks ago, the turmoil in the mortgage market, the U-turn over scrapping the 45p tax rate and Labour stretching its lead to 30 plus points in the opinion polls all contributed to a feeling of impending doom for the Conservatives.

In a relatively short speech of just 35 minutes – some Prime Ministers have been known to drone on for over an hour – she at least gave Tory representatives something to cheer about.

Central to her speech was her commitment to growth – or “growth, growth, growth” as she put it, as the way to get us out of the doldrums and power the UK onto a more prosperous future for us all.

Her philosophy was summed up succinctly in the passage when she said: “For too long the political debate has been dominated by the argument about how we distribute a limited economic pie.

“Instead, we need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.”

Cutting taxes is one of the ways she identified to promote growth, and she pointed out that the reduction in the basic rate of income tax, the scrapping of the National Insurance rise and the moves to stop energy prices rising to more than £6,000 for an average household, had saved ordinary people many thousands of pounds.

The mini-budget received a terrible press, but many people are better off as a result of it.

I liked the passage where she pledged to keep the government’s nose out of our business. She said: “I’m not going to tell you what to do, or what to think or how to live your life. I’m not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the supermarket, or how you spend your spare time, or in virtue signalling.” Well said!

Like Ms Truss, I am the parent of two wonderful daughters who are now applying their talents to climb the career ladder, so her warning not to dismiss the potential of women “by people who think they know better” resonated with me. Girl power is a wonderful thing.

The Prime Minister even dealt with a noisy interruption by two Greenpeace protesters with aplomb, and the demonstration, if anything, seemed to energise her, and it certainly united, for at least a moment, the Conservative conference behind her.

Looking at the smug, priggish protestors, I could not help but reflect that it is precisely their policies that have largely contributed to our current crisis. They opposed clean nuclear power, domestic fracking and campaigned to reduce coal power – leaving the UK and many European countries disastrously reliant on imported gas from Russia.

Indeed, things are even far worse in Germany where “green” policies have led directly to a huge increase in the burning of lignite – one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet – and an absolutely massive rise in carbon emissions. We don’t need lessons from such people who got it so catastrophically wrong in the recent past.

So, the Prime Minister’s performance was competent, rather than spectacularly good, but the Conservatives are at least allowed to hope it will provide a period of respite in the hope that all the turbulence calms down a bit.

But there were also some ominous warning signs. “Rebel” Tory MPs were talking of voting against aspects of the mini-budget, of effectively destroying the Conservative majority in the House of Commons, and even some talk of replacing Truss as Prime Minister, either by restoring Boris Johnson to power or somehow installing Rishi Sunak before Christmas.

This is nothing short of madness. Things are certainly bad for the Conservatives at the moment, but installing another new Prime Minister – the fifth in 12 years – is certainly not going to improve matters.

The wiser course for the Conservatives is to unite behind the Prime Minister and hope that her recipe for growth results in some tangible improvements in the next two years, and that people realise the mini-budget has put pounds in their pocket.