The plot to put Rishi Sunak in No. 10

When Rishi Sunak resigned over Boris Johnson’s leadership, he acknowledged that it might be the end of his political career. His dreams of leading the Tory party already seemed over, thanks to his wealthy wife’s non-dom status. In a few short weeks, the Tory party did something quite extraordinary, and forgot about all that. Setting aside what would normally have been a career ending scandal, they very nearly made him prime minister. Now his supporters are trying to engineer something even more amazing: ousting the woman who beat him in the party leadership contest, and installing their man in No. 10.

The first step of their plan involves market turmoil on Monday morning. Sunak and his supporters hope that more financial panic will be enough to force Truss to quit – whether voluntarily; or via a threatened change in the party rule book that theoretically protects her for a year; or via some other mechanism they have yet to come up with.

Step two involves the coronation of King Rishi, the argument being that he is the only figure that can at least semi unite a furious and fractured parliamentary party.