Tory MPs fear the new PM will plunge the country into economic chaos (Picture: AP/Getty)
Liz Truss is coming under growing pressure from within her own party – this time from a senior member in the Cabinet, reports say.
The anonymous minister told ITV’s political editor Robert Peston that Tory MPs would prefer a general election and lose their seats to the current economic crisis.
It comes after a damning new poll suggested senior Tories like Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Iain Duncan Smith would all lose their seats if an election was held now.
Another ‘Truss supporter’ told TalkTV’s political editor Kate McCann the PM is ‘cardboard and we just have to accept that’.
They added: ‘We’re going to lose [the next election]. Nothing makes any difference now, we’re f****d.’
The fledgling PM’s political difficulties continue this week after her own MPs demanded more U-turns on her tax slashing agenda at a meeting of the 1922 Committee.
She was also accused of ‘trashing the last 10 years’ of the Tories’ record.
Her plan to cancel a rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25%, due in April, is also under scrutiny as her own MPs call for a reversal or a delay.
Liz Truss was up against Sir Keir Starmer during Wednesday’s PMQs session (Picture: AFP/Getty)
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget has been criticised by her own party (Picture: Getty Images)
From the get-go, Ms Truss’s motto has been ‘growth, growth, growth’ but she has come under criticism for not outlining where the money will come from to grow the economy.
During PMQs on Wednesday, when she faced Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, she promised no cuts to public services and reaffirmed she understood how hard people are finding the cost of living crisis.
This was met with laughs and boos from the opposing benches.
Prominent Tory backbencher David Davis called her mini-Budget a ‘maxi-shambles’ and suggested reversing some of the tax cuts would avert leadership challenges for a few months.
David Davis is one of the Tory MPs who have hit out at Liz Truss (Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd)
‘If they do that I think people like Mel Stride and others will come in behind them and they buy some time,’ he told ITV’s Peston.
Meanwhile, Damian Green, a former deputy prime minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme Tory MPs are openly discussing some mini-Budget reversals to reduce debt after she rejected public spending reductions.
He said: ‘It is indeed a topic of conversation around the tea rooms of the House of Commons as well, because we can all do the rough maths and see that it’s very difficult.
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‘One of the obvious ways would be possibly to defer some of the tax cuts or the failure to put taxes up.’
On the flipside, business secretary Jacob Rees Mogg has suggested the government can ignore the Office for Budget Responsibility if they predict low growth and growing debt.
‘Its record of forecasting accurately hasn’t been enormously good,’ he said, adding the Chancellor can rely on ‘other sources of information’.
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One anonymous senior Tory MP said: ‘We’re going to lose. Nothing makes any difference now, we’re f****d.’