British Prime Minister Liz Truss has vowed to lead her party to the next general election but there is speculation she could be moved on long before she gets that chance.
Britain's Daily Star newspaper has asked if Ms Truss will outlive a lettuce, running a video live stream to watch it decompose in real time.
There are five days left before the lettuce outlasts its shelf life — the bet being that's longer than the time until Ms Truss either steps down, or is ousted by her own party.
Why is Truss in peril?
Ms Truss has backtracked on nearly all tax cuts pitched in her disastrous mini-budget — a U-turn she left to her new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to announce.
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng recently got the chop, and there is pressure from within her party that she follow him.
Didn't she just become PM?
Ms Truss took over from Boris Johnson just last month after beating Rishi Sunak to the post via an internal party ballot.
In an interview with the BBC, she said she would lead the party to the next general election.
But Ben Wellings, an expert on politics and international relations from Monash University, said her remaining tenure is more a question of weeks.
In fact, it could end before this week is out.
What must happen for Truss to be replaced?
As per Conservative Party rules, Ms Truss has 12 months amnesty against a leadership challenge, so the neatest option is for her to resign, Dr Wellings said.
"Liz Truss is technically protected from a leadership challenge, but that doesn’t mean to say that she couldn’t step down of her own accord, and when we say of her own accord, we mean the pressure has got too much," he said.
To overthrow her, critics would need to change that internal party rule, but Dr Wellings predicts that drastic change would more likely come when the party is in opposition.
"This is still an internal matter for the Conservative Party that affects everyone in the UK and I think the Conservatives have forgotten the distinction between themselves and the rest of the country," he said.
"Anything they do to put a new leader in place is going to have the problem of legitimacy."
Should Ms Truss resist the pressure to resign, the other option is for her to call a general election.
"There’s a train of thought of 'let’s lose this election, let’s let Labour do the hard work'," Dr Wellings said.
Who is in line to replace Truss?
Such a contest may attract fewer candidates than the summer leadership ballot, Dr Wellings said.
"We could resurrect everyone from July-August, but who’d want to do it? The job just got so much harder," he said.
Mr Sunak, who lost to Ms Truss in the grassroots member vote that determines the party's leader, is considered a likely candidate.
House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, who this week assured parliament the absent Ms Truss was not hiding under her desk, is also a possibility, but Dr Wellings said she was more likely to have a "secondary role".
"Sunak is also deeply divisive, they could come up with a Sunak-Mordaunt dream team but actually there’s a lot of people who would have to swallow their pride and their political principles to have that come to pass," Dr Wellings said.
Chancellor Hunt, now "de facto leader" — who lost to Mr Johnson after Theresa May resigned in 2019 — is another possibility.
But he may want to stay where he is, Dr Wellings said.
Another name being mentioned is Suella Braverman, who also threw her hat in the ring in the last leadership contest. But as a further-right candidate than Ms Truss, Dr Wellings said the party was unlikely to risk it.
What problems would a new leader face?
Ms Truss's successor would be the third Conservative Party leader this electoral cycle — two times removed from the leader people last went to the polls for — and seen to be less legitimate as a result.
This would put pressure on the government to hold an election sooner than they might hope, Dr Wellings said.
"If the Conservative Party put in a third leader since the last general election three years ago, and a fifth leader since the Brexit referendum of 2016, there’s going to build up a real head of steam to have an election."
The latest an election can be called is January 2025.
Dr Wellings predicts the party will either call an election immediately, or try to run as close to another two years as possible.
However long Ms Truss can hang on, there is a bigger problem, Dr Wellings said.
"The question is what's going wrong. It’s a deeper question, it's not just Truss or Kwarteng's policies.
"Something is broken in the Conservative Party, and possibly in British politics more generally."
