After a bruising start to her tenure, the knives are already out for Liz Truss - but if she can hang on until after New Year she will at least avoid the humiliation of becoming the UK’s shortest-serving PM. Ms Truss has only been in charge for just over a month, but there is already open rebellion among her own backbenchers - with some thought to have submitted letters of no confidence in the new PM.
The “mini-budget” announced by her Chancellor Kwarsi Kwarteng was met with widespread anger, saw the pound tank and Conservative support dwindle in the polls to such an extent that a resurgent Labour Party could now be looking at a landslide victory at the next election. Now she is under pressure to show how she can balance the books without radically cutting public services - with some MPs telling her to consider more policy u-turns on top of her change of heart over scrapping the 45p tax rate for those earning £150,000 or more.
An appearance in front of the 1922 Committee appears to have done little to silence the critics in her own party with a number of Tories continuing to brief against her in the media. Meanwhile, a petition calling for an immediate general election has passed half a million votes - meaning it has been signed by well over five times as many people who voted for Ms Truss to be PM - and her odds of surviving the year have been slashed to as short as 4/1, according to online gambling website Oddschecker.
