Tory MPs are not panicking yet – it’s worse than that

Truss has been prime minister for 22 days, 12 of which were taken up with mourning the death of the Queen. Yet at least one Tory MP is already privately predicting that Truss will be gone by Christmas, writes John Rentoul

The speed of events is stunning (Getty Images)

A Conservative MP with a safe seat told me: “I’ll be all right; I’ll be back here.” After the next election, he meant. “But a lot of these…” He swept his arm across Portcullis House, the annex to the Palace of Westminster where Tory MPs were grazing like herbivores oblivious to imminent danger.

This was a few days after Boris Johnson announced that he would be standing down as prime minister. “There is a mood. Not in favour of Labour, but against the government. We have got to show that we care about them” – another wave of the arm, towards the outside world inhabited by the voters.

Since then, the mood of Conservative MPs has fluctuated. When they thought Rishi Sunak was going to be prime minister, most of them were comfortable with the idea, even if they supported other candidates. As it became clearer, first that Liz Truss was going to win, and second that she really was going to “do things differently”, the mood divided and shifted.