LIZ Truss has tried to win over her fractious party with attacks on the “anti-growth coalition” made up of Labour, the SNP, Extinction Rebellion, “militant" unions and "the Brexit deniers".

In her speech to the Tory conference on Wednesday morning, the Prime Minister told delegates her priority would always be “growth, growth, growth.”

But the address comes at the end of what has been a disastrous gathering of the party faithful for the fledgling leader. 

Infighting, cabinet splits and the fallout from the humiliating U-turn on the decision to abolish the top rate of tax on high earners threatened to overshadow what was her first speech to conference.

READ MORE: Liz Truss branded 'walking disaster' ahead of Tory conference speech admitting 'disruption'

Shortly before she arrived on stage at the hall in Birmingham, a new poll from YouGov showed that the Prime Minister was already less popular than Boris Johnson at his lowest ebb.

According to the pollster, her net favourability rating is now -59. Mr Johnson only reached -53, and that was at the height of the Chris Pincher row which ultimately led to him being forced from office.

Sir Keir Starmer’s favourability rating is just -7.

Just minutes after she started, the speech was briefly interrupted when activists from Greenpeace heckled the Prime Minister and accused her of “shredding” her party’s manifesto commitment against fracking. 

They held a banner up with the words: “Who voted for this?”

The Herald:

“Let’s get them removed,” the Prime Minister said as the crowd booed. 

Opening her speech, Ms Truss vowed to lead Britain “through the tempest.”

The Prime Minister 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, how you spend your spare time or in virtue signalling.

“I’m not interested in just talking about things, but in actually doing things.”

Ms Truss said the political debate in the UK had 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,” she added.

“That is why I am determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low-growth cycle."

The Prime Minister said cutting taxes was the “right thing to do morally and economically.”.

“Morally, because the state doesn’t spend its own money: it spends the people’s money.

“Economically, because if people keep more of their own money, they’re inspired to do more of what they do best – that’s what grows the economy.

“When the Government plays too big a role, people feel smaller.

“High taxes mean you feel it’s less worthwhile working that extra hour, going for a better job or setting up your own business.

“That, my friends, is why we are cutting taxes.”

However, she promised her government would “always be fiscally responsible,” telling the hall that they would “bring down debt as a proportion of our national income.”

Ms Truss insisted that she and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng were “in complete lockstep on this.”

There was one fleeting allusion to Scottish independence, with the Prime Minister promising to “face down the separatists who threaten to pull apart our precious union, our family.”

Towards the end of her speech, in what may be a rehearsal for the Tory campaign at the next general election, Ms Truss rallied against the “anti-growth coalition”.

“Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think tanks, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers, Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier,” she added referring to the Greenpeace protesters.

“The fact is they prefer protesting to doing. They prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions.

“They taxi from north London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo.

“From broadcast to podcast, they peddle the same old answers.

“It’s always more taxes, more regulation and more meddling.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong. We see the anti-growth coalition at work across the country.

"Keir Starmer wants to put extra taxes on the companies we need to invest in our energy security. And his sticking plaster solution will only last six months.

"He has no long-term plan and no vision for Britain.

"Mark Drakeford in Wales is cancelling road-building projects and refusing to build the M4 relief road.

"Nicola Sturgeon won’t build new nuclear power stations in Scotland to solve the energy crisis in Scotland.

"Have these people ever seen a tax rise they don’t like? Or an industry they don’t want to control?

"They don’t understand the British people. They don’t understand aspiration.

"They are prepared to leave our towns and cities facing decline. My friends, does this anti-growth coalition have any idea who pays their wages?

"It’s the people who make things in factories across our country. It’s the people who get up at the crack of dawn to go to work.

"It’s the commuters who get trains into towns and cities across our country.

"I’m thinking of the white van drivers, the hairdressers, the plumbers, the accountants, the IT workers and millions of others up and down the UK.

"The anti-growth coalition just doesn’t get it.

"This is because they don’t face the same challenges as normal working people.

"These enemies of enterprise don’t know the frustration you feel to see your road blocked by protesters, or the trains off due to a strike.

"In fact, their friends on the hard left tend to be the ones behind the disruption. The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes.

"I say the real heroes are those who go to work, take responsibility and aspire to a better life for themselves and their family. And I am on their side."

Shortly after the speech, Nicola Sturgeon took to Twitter to suggest the Prime Minister was trying to cover up the damage done to the economy by leaving the EU.

"Ranting about an imaginary ‘anti growth coalition’ is just an attempt to obscure the hard reality that the biggest brake on UK growth is Brexit - and that’s on the Tories," she tweeted.

Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay said the Prime Minister had made it "abundantly clear that she and her shameless, self-obsessed government care only about tax cuts for the super-rich, handing our bankers' bonuses and trashing the planet."

She said the PM was trying "buy off her own Cabinet who know - despite their faux smiles to camera - that she simply is not up to the job." 

Ms Mackay added: “It speaks volumes that the biggest cheer coming from the Tories was not for their leader, but as two climate protestors from Greenpeace who unfurled a banner asking ‘Who Voted For This’ were huckled from the hall by security."

Labour's Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “The Tory economic crisis we are facing was made in Downing Street, paid for by working people facing higher mortgages and soaring costs.

“Liz Truss has been a Government minister for the last 10 years.

“She has been at the heart of building a Conservative economy that has led to the flat wages and low growth she highlighted today.

“Labour knows real growth comes from the contribution of millions of working people and thousands of businesses.

“The most important thing the Prime Minister can do right now to stabilise the economy is to immediately reverse her Government’s kamikaze budget when Parliament returns next week.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton the Prime Minister was "out of touch and doesn’t seem to care about the damage her government is causing the country."

"The only way to solve this crisis is to get the Conservatives out of power and bring new hope for the country," he added.