Could it be Rishi by Christmas?

What was supposed to be a recovery moment for the Conservatives instead looks like a collective nervous breakdown. The Prime Minister has been forced to U-turn on her flagship tax plan. Her cabinet is in open rebellion. Tory party conference resembled a civil war. The latest polling suggests the party is heading for electoral extinction. And that’s after just four weeks of Liz Truss’s premiership.

‘I know we have had a series of crises but this one really feels like the worst yet,’ says one seasoned government aide. Some Truss supporters are showing signs of buyer’s remorse. ‘I didn’t know it would be this bad,’ says one MP who backed her. Others blame disruptors such as Michael Gove, who suggested he would not support Truss’s mini-Budget in a Commons vote without changes. Suella Braverman, in response, accused her former cabinet colleague of attempting a ‘coup’ against the leader.

In the small hours at the party’s annual conference, there were whispered conversations in bars: are there no other options? ‘We cannot oust another prime minister,’ says a member of the 2019 intake.