It certainly ain’t over yet.
This week could come to mark the point bookies’ runaway favourite for No10 Liz Truss blew up her own campaign.
First there was the childish slight to “attention seeker” Nicola Sturgeon at a hustings in Exeter.
Then the absolute shambles about wanting to pay public sector workers less depending on where they lived - an astounding misjudgement compounded by the Trumpesque claim that the media were “misrepresenting” her policy - which was spelt out in a press release issued by her own campaign.
Last night, under elegantly forensic yet quietly devastating questioning by Sky News legend Kay Burley, Truss made what could prove to be a fatal error as she again squirmed over the U-turn.
“I don’t have the details,” she admitted to an audience of Tory members.
The longest continuously serving current Cabinet Minister.
A former Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
The Current Foreign Secretary.
An aspiring Prime Minister.
Yet she doesn’t have the detail OF HER OWN POLICY.
Getting rid of Boris Johnson and replacing him with Truss would be ousting a details-free funnyman and bringing in a details-free less funny woman.
Surely, after the outrage unleashed by her proposal, she could have bothered to gen up on it in anticipation of a grilling. She may have thought it might come up.
Truss endured a disastrous evening at Sky’s studios.
Burley skewered her for flip-flopping over teenage plans to abolish the monarchy, supporting Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum and backing Britons to fight in Ukraine earlier this year.
“Will the real Liz Truss please stand up?” inquired kindly assassin Kay.
Multi-millionaire former hedge fund manager Sunak didn’t have it all his own way.
Asked about dental treatment waiting lists, he gushed about his seven Coke-fuelled childhood fillings - while the intense studio lights bounced off his suspiciously gleaming top row.
He was also taken to task for building a swimming pool at his North Yorkshire mansion while the local baths could close over spiralling energy costs and rampant inflation.
He was also scolded for wearing £490 brown suede designer loafers to a building site on a campaign visit.
“People feel that you can’t walk a mile in their shoes because you’re walking in your Prada shoes,” came Kay with the scripted-yet-still-stark accusation.
But, eight hours after the Bank of England’s interest rate hike and bleak warnings of recession and job losses, former Chancellor Sunak had the ball at his feet, blasting his rival’s plans to cut taxes.
“We in the Conservative Party need to get real and fast. The lights on the economy are flashing red and the root cause is inflation,” he told activists.
“I'm worried Liz Truss' plans will make the situation worse."
One audience member really went after Truss over her economics plan, telling the No10 hopeful: "Liz, I don't want to see my children and grandchildren encumbered with huge debt.
“The one thing Margaret Thatcher believed in was sound money; this isn't sound economics."
That will have really hurt Truss, who has styled herself as Thatcher Mk II in the hope of seducing the party grassroots.
Capping off her nightmare 90-minute horror show, the audience delivered its own verdict when, urged by Burley for a show of hands, guests overwhelmingly suggested they would vote for Sunak over Truss.
If she has derailed her own procession to Downing Street, she has only herself to blame.
