We'll be ending our live coverage shortly - so here's a recap of today's main headlines, as the Conservatives gather for their party conference in Birmingham:

• Prime Minister Liz Truss told Laura Kuenssberg she stands by the tax cuts announced by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng on 23 September
• But she accepted the government could have "laid the ground better" before the mini-budget
• The PM admitted she did not discuss cutting the top tax rate from 45% to 40% with the whole cabinet, adding it was the chancellor's decision
• Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries - one of former PM Boris Johnson's fiercest supporters - accused Truss of throwing Kwarteng under the bus with the revelation
• Former cabinet minister Michael Gove said cutting the 45% tax rate was a mistake - and should be reversed
• But Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry said he thought the tax cut was the right thing to do and that Tory MPs would vote for it
• He is echoed by MP and former minister Greg Hands, who pointed out the top rate of tax was 40% for almost all of the last Labour government - and that a cut in 2012 from 50 to 45% was followed by increased tax revenue
• But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government's plan amounted to "trickle-down economics" and would fail, accusing the PM and chancellor of "some sort of mad experiment with the UK economy"

We've heard plenty of criticism of the government's economic plans - not least from former minister Michael Gove, who has called for the tax cut for highest earners to be scrapped.

But another former minister - Greg Hands MP - says the policies themselves are reasonable.

"Cutting the top rate of tax happened in 2012 under the Conservative/LibDem Coalition, from 50p to now 45p. Government revenue actually *rose* by £8bn," he writes.

"But 40p is the rate is was under Labour for almost all of its 13 years. So 40p is not a Revolution!"

But he adds: "The question is perhaps more of timing, sequencing and politics." Read the full thread below.

In case you missed it in the Sunday Telegraph earlier,, external Labour leader Keir Starmer reached out to any Conservative MPs unhappy about Liz Truss's mini-budget.

He called it "unacceptable" that neither the country nor Parliament had any say on the measures. A parliamentary vote on the plans - which include a tax cut for the highest earners - is not likely to take place until next spring.

"The economy is not a laboratory experiment for the maddest scientists of the Conservative Party. Mortgages, pensions and family finances are not casino chips for a Government intoxicated by dogma," Starmer wrote.

"There are many decent Conservative MPs who know this. My message to them is that Labour will work with anyone to ensure some semblance of economic sanity is restored."

There have been reports that some Conservative MPs would work with Labour to try to vote against the government's economic policy, when it comes before the Commons next year.

A narrow mea culpapublished at 14:54 British Summer Time 2 October 2022

14:54 BST 2 October 2022

Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor

The prime minister's acknowledgement that the mini-budget was handled inadequately is an important message not just to her restive political colleagues gathering in Birmingham, but to the markets.

It is also an implicit admission that there was a connection between the spike in government borrowing costs, the initial crash in sterling's value, and the announcements made last Friday.

The mea culpa was narrow, however.

It did not stretch to the idea that the policies themselves were the problem.

And nor, as almost all market commentators have argued, did the prime minister accept the argument that allowing the OBR to publish a set of numbers alongside the mini-budget would have helped.

• Read more from Faisal here

In our last post, we reported on a hostile reception for Jacob Rees-Mogg as he arrived at the conference.

"There have been protests at Tory conferences since time immemorial, it's nothing new," he tells Sky News.

"It's a fact of democracy. They're shouting but it's perfectly peaceful.

"And the right to peaceful expression of your view is fundamental to our constitution."

Image source, PA Media

Outside the Conservative conference in Birmingham's ICC protesters are expressing anger at Liz Truss's tax cuts for the highest earners.

Jane Elledge, 53, from Bromsgrove, wants the Tories voted out of government.

She says: "We’ve had Brexit, we’ve had falling standards, we’ve had people having to work two jobs, people starving, people with no heating and just the kind of final straw is the announcement of the richest people getting a tax cut.

"Trickle-down economics doesn't work."

Business and Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg had to be escorted by police into the conference as protesters shouted "Tory scum".

Brian Wheeler

Catholic priest Ray Lyons, from Southampton, says he has been active in Tory politics since the 1960s. He voted for Rishi Sunak in the leadership contest and he is furious about what Liz Truss is doing.

"I think it’s time probably for another new leader," he says.

"I am horrified with the first few weeks of this government. It was predictable and I think both the economic aim is right – bad policy choices and disastrous presentation."

He adds: "I think she is just barmy, it’s ideological zealotism."

Brian Wheeler

Now let's go to back to the wider Conservative Party conference, which is taking place in Birmingham.

Tory members arriving seem to be willing to give Liz Truss a chance - even if they have doubts about her economic policies.

Hannah Jarvis, from Monmouth in South Wales, says it's a difficult time to be a Tory - and the party has to have some "humility" about its recent mistakes.

"That said, this is an opportunity for us all to come together now as members of the party and unite behind the leader and give her a chance," she tells me.

She adds: "She wasn’t my first choice but when it was whittled down to the final two I voted for her over Rishi.

"I did so on the strength of what I anticipated her fiscal policy would be and I must be honest this is not what I anticipated.

"I see the logic in what she is saying. That the wealthy do stimulate the economy, but I would, if I’m being honest, like to see a bit more in place for those on lower incomes and for those on benefits."

Jane MacBean, from the Chesham and Amersham constituency, says Ms Truss's economic policies had to be given time to "bed in".

And Olatunde Macauley, from Rayleigh and Wickford - who is attending his first Tory conference - is upbeat about the week ahead.

"I am a big supporter of what she is doing. I am very optimistic about the conference," he says.

And here's more from Jake Berry, the Conservative Party chairman and MP for Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire.

Despite falling behind in the polls, Berry says he's confident the Conservatives can perform well at the next election.

"We're going to take the fight to every doorstep in every town and city and every village, and make that positive case for a Conservative government that's growing your economy," he says.

Recent polls have given the Labour Party a huge lead over the Conservatives - 54 to 21% in one example, external -but the next general election does not, in theory, have to take place until January 2025 - and much can change before then.

In response to Gove's comments that cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40% was a mistake, party chair Jake Berry says he thinks "it was the right thing to do".

"I think we should be making the argument for a low tax, high growth economy," he says - and adds that he believeds Tory MPs would vote for the measures.

Gove, who was previously Levelling Up Minister, says the policy - a centre-piece of Boris Johnson's agenda - is not dead.

"I'm confident that levelling up will be central to this government's agenda, and indeed central to the conversation over the next few years," he says.

It is crucial to ensure the "economic good fortune" the south of England has enjoyed in recent years is shared with the rest of the country, he adds.

Gove again says the top rate tax cut, from 45% to 40%, was a mistake.

Here's more from Michael Gove - who lost his cabinet job in the final weeks of Boris Johnson's time as prime minister, and is now a backbencher.

On Liz Truss's economic policy, he says: "Personally, I am wary of some of the changes she is making - but she did win on that basis... [but] what was not discussed during the Conservative leadership election was tax cuts for the very wealthiest."

The tax change proposed by Truss - reducing the top rate from 45% to 40% - is not "wise or necessary," he says.

Gove is then asked: if the House of Commons vote on tax cuts was tomorrow, what would you do?

It's not tomorrow, so there's plenty of time to discuss it, Gove says.

Image source, Telegraph

Michael Gove is speaking on the Telegraph panel now - and says he welcomes Liz Truss's acknowledgement that the "groundwork hadn't been laid" for tax cuts.

However - on rumoured spending cuts - he thinks it's going to be "very difficult to argue it is right to reduce welfare while we're also reducing taxes for the wealthy".

"We want to make sure that the changes we make are in tune with values with which Boris won the 2019 election, which are looking after the most vulnerable in our society and making sure we're all in this together."

On the sidelines of the Tory conference shortly, former cabinet minister Michael Gove will be speaking on a panel, followed by Conservative Party chair Jake Berry, in an event hosted by The Telegraph.

While Berry defended Liz Truss' mini-budget in an interview with Sky News earlier today, Gove raised concerns, declining to confirm whether or not he would vote for it. Both will speak on the Chopper's Politics podcast event, getting under way now.

Also later today Defence Secretary Ben Wallace will speak at an event being billed as "how best to keep Britain and our values safe", while Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to address the conference tomorrow.

Reality Check

The UK's growth has been low in the past decade, and the decline started before the Covid pandemic.

The UK economy grew at an average rate of 2.3% between 1982 and 1992, and 2.6% between 1993 and 2002.

In the past two decades, the economy has grown by an average of 1.4% each year. But it has been affected by two major global crises - the financial crash of 2008 and the Covid pandemic that started in 2020.

Even if you exclude these, growth in the last 10 years has not matched previous decades. The UK saw an average growth rate of 2.5% between 2002 and 2007 (before the financial crash of 2008-09). In the years after the crash and before Covid – 2010 to 2019 – it grew at a rate of 2%.

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have said their goal is to secure steady growth for the UK of 2.5% a year.

As the Conservative Party conference gets under way in Birmingham more party members are commenting on the PM's controversial mini-budget.

It's a "possibility" Liz Truss has condemned the Conservative Party at the next general election, said Simon Poole from Newcastle, a Tory member since 2019. He told the PA news agency the policies in her mini-budget were "divisive" and should not have been announced now.

He explained: "Those sort of policies would normally be announced at the beginning of a five-year parliament, and I'm not sure that 18 months is long enough." The next election is expected in 2024.

On whether Ms Truss may have condemned the party's electoral chances, he said: "I think that is a possibility."

Image source, Reuters

More now from the interview with Conservative chair Jake Berry on Sophy Ridge's programme on Sky News.

When asked about the impact of tax policy changes on households, he said the government was determined to deliver growth "not for the government or bankers" but for working households in the country:

Simon Browning
Business reporter

A senior market analyst, Craig Erlam, shared his thoughts with me following the PM's interview this morning.

He said: "I'm not sure exactly who will be reassured by the Prime Minister’s performance... Truss displayed either a lack of understanding of the consequences of the mini-budget - for example, in her thinking it was a communication problem and her refusal to acknowledge that the spike in borrowing in the aftermath wasn't a global phenomenon - or a total lack of care, perhaps both.

Tory chairman Jake Berry has warned that any Conservative who rebels in a Commons vote on the PM's tax-cutting plans will be expelled from the party.

Berry was speaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge as the party conference got under way in Birmingham. He was asked if rebel MPs would "lose the whip" in that case, and replied "correct".

It came as former Cabinet minister Michael Gove voiced his concerns about Liz Truss's mini-budget to Laura Kuenssberg, saying: "I don't believe it's right".

Berry also commented on reports Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had discussed plans for future spending cuts at a private champagne reception with hedge fund managers, following his financial announcement.

"I certainly didn't hear him make those comments," said Berry, who attended the event.

"I was there so I listened to what he said, and what he talked about was his plan for growth."