Michael Gove breaking ranks revealed a Tory party divided - so who is in charge of the Tories?

Quite literally as fringe events in Birmingham were cranking into action, Michael Gove was telling the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that he disagrees with the scrapping of the 45p higher tax band.

Mr Gove also expressed concerns about the ideology of the party itself, suggesting that unfunded borrowing to address crises was in fact unconservative.

Barbs like that from someone so senior in the party should not be underestimated, particularly given Mr Gove then took to as many conference events as he could yesterday, even taking questions from audiences - and repeating his concerns with more candour and conviction - who wanted to hear more about why this so-called big beast is so worried.

Certainly some of his concerns will have been compounded by Prime Minister Liz Truss’ admission that she and Kwasi Kwarteng did not ‘prepare the ground properly’ ahead of announcing last week’s mini-budget.

She accepted mistakes were made, for sure, insisting that she had learned from the fall-out of that fiscal event where unfunded tax cuts and additional borrowing spooked the markets to the point where pension funds were at risk with the pound slumping to a new low - only a £65bn injection from the Bank of England steadied that ship.

However, even if Ms Truss conceding that she is learning on the job was not that which has rattled the likes of Michael Gove, her critics will certainly be emboldened by the Prime Minister’s ruthlessness in disowning Mr Kwarteng’s budget but more pertinently, the Chancellor himself. When pressed on the scrapping of the 45 per cent tax band she simply said: “That was the Chancellor’s decision, not mine.” Which begs the question: who is in charge?