Liz Truss has been branded "a walking disaster for the UK economy" as she prepares to make a speech that could define her time in Downing Street.
The new Prime Minister will address a Conservative party conference today riven by in-fighting and splits between MPs over key policies.
Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng were forced into a humiliating U-turn on Monday when they ditched a plan to lower the top rate of income tax for the highest earners.
The reversal was prompted by an increasing number of Tory MPs who broke ranks to announce publicly they would not vote for the policy in the Commons.
Morale among delegates at the Tory conference in Birmingham plummeted further yesterday after Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused opponents of Truss's tax policy of staging a "coup" against her.
Truss must now try and reunite a party that has been left reeling by furious reaction to her mini-budget and a series of polls which predict victory for Labour at the next general election.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, last night accused the Prime Minister of "lurching from one crisis to another". He said: "Liz Truss has been a walking disaster for the UK economy. She has shown appalling judgement and staggering incompetence - and it is people in Scotland paying the price as mortgages rise, pensions fall, and the Tory cost of living crisis spirals out of control.
"The Prime Minister must use her conference speech to announce her third U-turn this week - and abandon Tory plans to slash benefits and impose £18billion austerity cuts. The UK has lurched from one crisis to another under this Tory government. It's completely unacceptable that people in Scotland are repeatedly being forced to foot the bill for Westminster failure."
Former Tory cabinet minister Grant Shapps claimed "anything is possible" when responding to the suggestion that the Prime Minister could be ousted. In a brief clip tweeted by The News Agents podcast, it was put to Shapps that it is possible the Conservatives could change leader again if Liz Truss “does badly”.
He responded: "Look, of course anything is possible. Anything is possible. But I think she has this opportunity in the next 10 days to reverse some of the problems of the last 10 days. And, for reference, I’m cheering her on to do that. That’s what I want to see happen."
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