Naked criticism of the new PM did not land well...

It should have been a political honeymoon for Liz truss this week.

Just a month since being anointed as the new tory leader, and after delivering the biggest tax- cutting Budget in decades, the Prime Minister might reasonably have felt entitled to a warm welcome at this week’s Conservative Party conference.

But some guests at this family gathering in Birmingham did not get the memo.

Michael Gove may have pledged to be stepping back from frontline politics, but he has a funny way of showing it.

the former Cabinet minister is due to speak at no fewer than nine fringe events this week, and judging by yesterday’s appearances, none of them is likely to be helpful to the Government.

Before the conference had even started he popped up on Laura

Kuenssberg’s flagship BBC chat show to pass judgment. Whether by accident or design, Mr Gove was positioned directly in Miss truss’s eye line. Every time she looked up, there he was, waiting to deliver a withering verdict.

He did not hold back. Unfunded tax cuts in the emergency Budget were ‘un-Conservative’, he said.

Miss truss had made a series of ‘mistakes’ and it was time for a ‘reset’. the decision to axe the 45p top tax rate was ‘ a display of the wrong values’.

Would he even vote for the

Budget? He suggested not, saying: ‘I don’t believe it’s right.’

In a five-minute appearance, Mr Gove effectively appointed himself as leader of the Tory party’s Truss-sceptic MPs.

The naked criticism of the new PM on the opening day of her first conference as leader did not land well with her supporters.

One source said: ‘ Michael Gove is the jackal of British politics, always seeking another carcass to feast on’, adding: ‘ He stabbed Boris in the back on two occasions and now he’s at it again with Liz.

‘With friends like him, who needs the Labour Party?’

So what is he up to?

Some allies of the PM believe Mr Gove is seeking to stir up opposition against her in the hope of engineering a situation in which Rishi Sunak would be acclaimed by Tory MPs as her successor, without the need for a leadership contest.

One No 10 insider described the plan as ‘deluded’, saying: ‘If he really thinks he can just manoeuvre Rishi into position without a contest then he is even more deluded than

I thought.’ Another Truss ally said: ‘ He needs to understand that the public will not forgive the Conservative Party if it despatches two leaders in quick succession.’

Mr Sunak is not here in Birmingham, having let it be known that he is skipping the conference to give the new PM ‘all the space she needs to own the moment’.

But supporters of the PM believe he has despatched his outriders to do his work for him.

All of this is flatly denied by Mr Gove – as is a suggestion from former business minister Anna Soubry yesterday that he still hopes for another tilt at the leadership himself.

One friend of Mr Gove said: ‘ He is just doing what he thinks is right. I think he is speaking for an awful lot of MPs, but he is not co-ordinating with anybody.

‘As for the idea that he is pushing to be leader himself, it is just nonsense – he has already ruled it out publicly.’

Downing Street is braced for more former ministers voicing criticism in the coming days. George Osborne crept out of the woodwork last night to say it was ‘touch and go’ whether Kwasi Kwarteng can survive unless he backs down over the 45p top tax rate.

And it’s not just Sunak-ites sniffing the possibility that the new PM might fall by the wayside.

Some supporters of Boris Johnson cling to the hope that he could be recalled to office if Miss Truss were to stumble.

Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, one of Mr Johnson’s most ardent admirers, was quick to twist the knife yesterday when Miss Truss appeared to blame Mr Kwarteng for the 45p controversy, saying it was ‘a decision the Chancellor made’.

In a message on Twitter, she said: ‘One of Boris Johnson’s faults was that he could sometimes be too loyal.

‘However, there is a balance and throwing your Chancellor under a bus on the first day of conference really isn’t it.’ Rachel Wolf, the co-author of the Tories’ 2019 manifesto, said the Truss government ‘rejected everything that Boris won the last election on’.

The truth is that jitters about last week’s Budget run deep among Tory MPs already nervous they face losing their seats.

One Cabinet minister said Miss Truss had only a ‘five per cent chance’ of winning the next election, adding: ‘Things have gone downhill so fast. It’s very hard to see a way back.’

Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry yesterday warned that any MP voting against the 45p cut would be suspended from the party – but his statement only prompted more potential rebels to come forward publicly.

At ten past four this afternoon, Mr Kwarteng will rise to address the conference, in the most closely watched conference speech by a Chancellor for many years.

If he and Miss Truss are to have any chance of winning over their rebellious MPs – let alone the public and financial markets – it had better be good.

‘He is the jackal of British politics’