MPs say Liz Truss has just 'hours' to save her job as the government teeters on the brink after another chaotic day. Wednesday saw the acrimonious resignation of her home secretary, mayhem in the Commons over a fracking vote, and confusion over whether the Chief and Deputy Chief Whip had quit.
On Thursday morning Conservative MP Simon Hoare said Ms Truss had 'about 12 hours' to 'turn the ship around'. Asked if the PM is 'up to the job', he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think she could be. I think it's… one can't say hand on heart today that there is a… if this was a career review, an employer sitting in front of a person looking at performance and outcomes etc, then the score sheet isn't looking very good.
"But I'm a glass half full sort of person. Can the ship be turned around? Yes. But I think there's about 12 hours to do it. I think today and tomorrow are crunch days."
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Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said Liz Truss has 'probably got hours left, if not days', and said he would be surprised if she has weeks left in Number 10. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "I think the question for Conservative MPs actually is how much longer are you going to subject the country to this?
"Because let's be honest, Liz Truss has probably got hours left, if not days. I'd be surprised if it's weeks. And then what happens?
"We get another Conservative Prime Minister and people are meant to believe that after 12 years the arsonists who started the fire in the first place are going to suddenly become the firefighters? I don't think so."
But Cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said she believes 'at the moment' Liz Truss will fight the next election as Prime Minister. Ms Trevelyan told Times Radio: "I think at the moment that is still the case."
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The Transport Secretary said: "At the moment I think that is the case, yes. And I’m looking forward to Jeremy Hunt delivering his statement at the end of the month, and to help us all to be able to get on with delivering our departmental budgets."
Last night there was speculation that Chief Whip Wendy Morton and her deputy, Craig Whittaker, walked out after a last-minute U-turn on a threat to strip the whip from Conservative MPs if they backed a Labour challenge over fracking.
It came after climate minister Graham Stuart told the Commons minutes before the vote that “quite clearly this is not a confidence vote”, despite Mr Whittaker earlier issuing a “100% hard” three-line whip, meaning any Tory MP who rebelled could be thrown out of the parliamentary party.
No 10 later said Mr Stuart had been “mistakenly” told by Downing Street to say the vote should not be treated as a confidence motion, and that Conservative MPs were “fully aware” it was subject to a three-line whip.
A spokesman said the whips would be speaking to the Tories who failed to support the Government, and those without a “reasonable excuse” would face “proportionate disciplinary action”.
After hours of uncertainty over their departures, Downing Street was forced to issue a clarification that both “remain in post”.
Yesterday Home Secretary Suella Braverman lashed out at Ms Truss's 'tumultuous' premiership as she resigned and accused the Government of 'breaking key pledges'. Her exit, coming just five days after Kwasi Kwarteng’s sacking as chancellor, means the Prime Minister has lost two people from the four great offices of state within her first six weeks in No 10, with all eyes on whether other Cabinet ministers could follow suit.
In a sign of the growing pressure on Ms Truss, Tory former Brexit minister Lord David Frost joined calls for her to step down. "As Suella Braverman made so clear this afternoon, the Government is implementing neither the programme Liz Truss originally advocated nor the 2019 manifesto. It is going in a completely different direction,” the Conservative peer, who backed Ms Truss to be Prime Minister, wrote in The Telegraph.
"There is no shred of a mandate for this. It's only happening because the Truss Government messed things up more badly than anyone could have imagined… Something has to give."
There is speculation that the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, has already received more than 54 letters calling for a no-confidence vote in the Prime Minister, the threshold for triggering one if Ms Truss was not in the 12 months’ grace period for new leaders.
In a barely coded dig at the Prime Minister whose disastrous mini-budget sparked financial turmoil, Ms Braverman wrote in her resignation letter: “I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign.”
The letter continued: “The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes.
“Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics.
“It is obvious to everyone that we are going through a tumultuous time.”
In an attempt to rescue her ailing leadership, Ms Truss replaced Ms Braverman with Grant Shapps, a backer of her rival, Rishi Sunak, in the Tory leadership race and a critic of her subsequently-abandoned plan to abolish the top rate of income tax.
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