Keir Starmer tonight told the weekly parliamentary Labour party meeting that ‘we will never underestimate Liz Truss’. The Labour leader added that ‘she is a talented politician who has got to the top through hard work and determination’ and that ‘she will do whatever it takes to keep them in power’. He warned that ‘the polls might tighten and her plans might create some buzz’. It was a reminder to the party, which often struggles to accept female Tory leaders, not to fall into the trap of mocking Truss or feasting too much on the Tory civil war.

How will Labour approach the new PM? Starmer will be asking her questions on Wednesday at her first Prime Minister’s Questions, and will have spent the past few weeks working on his strategy for that. He clearly doesn’t want to insult her intelligence – as some of her own party colleagues have. He does, however, want to link her back to the previous administration – and those before too. One party source explains the pitch:

She sat round every cabinet and nodded through every decision that got us in this mess. She’s the Environment Secretary who slashed the Environment Agency – now there is shit everywhere. She’s the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who oversaw the selling of our gas storage – now there’s an energy crisis. It’s the same old crap ideas that got us in this mess, dressed up as something new.

The energy bill freeze that Truss is currently finessing with her soon-to-be Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is similar to the Labour (and Lib Dem) proposal – and the assumption of the opposition has been that the Conservatives would adopt it at some stage, with the longer-term dividing line being how to fund that multibillion pound policy.

Starmer’s lines about expecting Truss to do well to begin with are also an acknowledgment that he has to set out more of his own offer. He told tonight’s meeting that:

I’ve spent the summer working with my team and the shadow cabinet on conference. And I promise you we are going to build on all those plans and ensure that when the next election comes, the cry for change in this country will be answered by our Labour party.

Many grandees fear that if Starmer doesn’t land this autumn’s conference well, then he will have little chance of making Labour the government-in-waiting. He knows that the pressure isn’t just on the figure at the despatch box across the Commons – but himself too.