Liz Truss's team used to pretend members of her family had died so she could avoid appearing on TV, a former top aide has claimed.
Kirsty Buchanan, who worked for Ms Truss when she was Justice Secretary, claimed advisors would "spend quite a lot of time killing off minor members of her family".
Ms Buchanan said her old boss didn't like the media, and so her office would get creative to find ways of swerving appearances.
She told the Whitehall Sources podcast that eventually they ran out of excuses.
The former advisor, who worked for the PM between 2016 and 2017, said:“She didn’t like the media, so we used to spend quite a lot of time making up excuses and killing off minor members of her family so she didn’t have to go on."
She then clarified that these were "only minor people like aunts and cousins and things — I’m not talking about major members of the family".
When Ms Truss did appear on BBC show Question Time, she had that she'd only feature if a particular individual - who Ms Buchanan did not name - was not there.
But the minister had a nasty shock when she turned up to find this person was there.
“I don’t know if they did it on purpose because he’s a long-time baiter of hers,” Ms Buchanan said.
Ms Truss faces a growing rebellion within her own party as she desperately tries to cling on to power.
Six Tory MPs have publicly called for her to go, and there are claims that dozens have submitted letters of no confidence in her leadership.
The latest to break ranks was backbencher William Wragg, who today told the Commons he had “lodged” a letter of no confidence in Ms Truss to the chairman of the 1922 committee.
He said: “I cannot go and face my constituents, look them in the eye and say they should support my great party.
"And the polls seem to bear that out.”
Mr Wragg said he was "personally ashamed" by what occurred after the mini-budget and stressed: "The lack of foresight by senior members of the Government, I cannot easily forgive."
