Truss Fights For Survival As Tory Rebel MPs Warn That 'Game Is Up'

Rule stopping leadership challenge could change, says 1922 Committee

- Pippa Crerar

Liz Truss is fighting for her political survival, with Tory MPs threatening to oust her and even allies warning she has just days to turn round her premiership despite ripping up her economic strategy and appointing Jeremy Hunt as chancellor.

The prime minister will attempt to shore up her crumbling support by gathering cabinet ministers at No 10 today, then embarking on a series of meetings with mutinous MPs.

After crisis talks at Chequers over their new fiscal plan yesterday, Hunt insisted Truss was still "in charge", as he warned of further public spending cuts and failed to rule out more U-turns on her disastrous mini-budget, including scrapping the ip cut to the income tax base rate.

Ministers were waiting anxiously for the markets to open the first test of whether Truss's decision to sack Kwasi Kwarteng and tear up her mini-budget would be enough-amid fears that sterling could head towards parity with the dollar and that rising bond yields would put upward pressure on mortgage rates.

A poll by Opinium for the Trades Union Congress projected a 1997style landslide for Labour, with the party winning 411 seats. It suggests the Conservatives would lose 219 seats to end up on 137, with the Lib Dems on 39 and SNP on 37. Ten cabinet ministers, including Jeremy Hunt, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Thérèse Coffey, would lose their seats, along with Truss's predecessor, Boris Johnson.

Plotting at Westminster continued at the weekend with a group of senior Tory MPs, many of them supporters of Rishi Sunak, planning to meet tonight for dinner amid speculation that as many as 100 no-confidence letters have been submitted to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee.

The veteran Tory MP Crispin Blunt was the first to go public in calling for Truss to step down. "I think the game is up and it's now a question as to how the succession is managed," he said.