Truss offers to save PM amid growing Tory unrest

Yet those efforts could be wasted this week if Tory MPs decide a change of leader is needed, with three members of Ms Truss’ parliamentary party already breaking ranks to call on her to leave.

Crispin Blunt, Andrew Bridgen and Jamie Wallis all called on the Prime Minister to step down on Sunday, while other parliamentary party figures expressed deep unease with Ms Truss’ leadership but refrained from calling on her to leave .

Mr Blunt was the first MP to demand his release, telling Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show on Sunday: ‘I think the game is up and it’s now about how the estate is handled.

It came at the end of another extraordinary weekend in British politics, which even saw US President Joe Biden step in to brand Ms Truss’ economic vision a “mistake”.

Against the backdrop of conspiracy rumors and plans to install the defeated Rishi Sunak or Ben Wallace as the new leader, Ms Truss met with her new chancellor at Checkers to set a new budget for October 31.

Mr Hunt, who conducted something of a media blitz on behalf of the Prime Minister over the weekend, insisted she was still in charge even as he diagnosed the need for a strict set of tax hikes and spending cuts to stabilize the UK. economy.

Penny Mordaunt also offered her full support for the Prime Minister, using a Telegraph article to warn that the UK ‘needs stability, not a soap opera’.

She told her colleagues that the “national mission” is clear but “requires pragmatism and teamwork”.

“He needs us to work with the prime minister and his new chancellor. He needs all of us.”

Earlier, Mr Hunt told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg program that Ms Truss remained ‘in charge’ and insisted voters could always trust her.

“She is listened to. She has changed. She was ready to do the hardest thing in politics, which is to change course,” he said.

“What we’re going to do is show not just what we want, but how we’re going to get there.”

Mr Hunt’s attendance was welcomed by many MPs, but many prominent figures admitted that whether the Prime Minister could still survive the current crisis was an open question.

Tory MP Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons Education Committee, appeared on Sky News and refused to deny MPs are considering installing a new leader.

“We’re all talking to see what can be done about it.”

“Over the past few weeks, the government has looked like libertarian jihadists and has treated the whole country like some kind of laboratory mouse,” he said.

Senior Curator Alicia Kearns also told Times Radio that the question of whether Ms Truss should continue to lead is “incredibly difficult”.

And writing in the Telegraph, former minister Liam Fox called the current situation “the deepest political hole we have seen in a generation”.

Stuart Rose, a Tory peer and chairman of Asda, told the Financial Times the Prime Minister was a “bust flush”.

Labor added to that pressure, with Sir Keir Starmer calling on the Prime Minister to appear before the Commons on Monday.

The Labor leader joked that Ms Truss is now ‘in power but not in power’.

It comes as a new poll, first published in the Guardian, predicted landslide for Labor and annihilation for the Tories.

The poll, conducted by Opinium for the Trades Union Congress and using the MRP method to estimate constituency-level results, puts Labor in 411 seats to the Conservatives’ 137.

In a sign of party division, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries denounced her party colleagues.

“I can’t imagine there is a G7 country that thinks we deserve a place at the table.

“The removal of an elected prime minister, the shameful plot to remove another by those who didn’t get it right the first time destabilizes our economy and our reputation,” she tweeted.