Saturday 15 October 2022 11:52 PM No10 insists snobbery and sexism is driving the push to oust Liz Truss as PM  trends now

When MPs return to Westminster tomorrow, they will immediately be immersed in what No 10 insists is a ‘vendetta’ driven by sexism and snobbery.

‘This is a vendetta driven by former public schoolboys who can’t get over the fact that they were beaten by a woman’, a senior Government source claimed last night. Downing Street places allies of Rishi Sunak at the heart of the blood feud, naming Gavin Williamson, Julian Smith, Michael Gove, Grants Shapps, Mel Stride and Oliver Dowden as plotters.

Despite No 10’s public school barb, only Mr Sunak was exclusively privately educated at secondary level. But whatever their schooling, the plotters are understood to have set themselves a target of 125 MPs who will demand that Ms Truss is automatically replaced by Mr Sunak.

Parallel not dissimilar lobbying is also under way by supporters of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, who was narrowly beaten into third place by Ms Truss in the MPs’ voting round of last summer’s leadership contest. In fact, some MPs claim Camp Mordaunt is if anything, ‘more on manoeuvres than Rishi is’.

The main tactic being deployed by the PM’s enemies is the traditional Tory rebels’ weapon of choice – no-confidence letters to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee of backbench MPs. Already, more than 100 MPs are thought to have submitted letters – or made clear they want a leadership contest.

Truss loyalists are clinging to the fact that technically speaking, the ’22 rules state that a leadership contest cannot be held until one year has elapsed since the summer race that ended with Ms Truss installed in No 10.

But many Tory MPs say Sir Graham will bow to the sheer weight of pressure and agree to change the 12-month rule.

Even if he doesn’t, the anti-Truss coalition has a plan B in which the ’22 chairman himself will be ousted and replaced by a rebel such as William Wragg who would rewrite the rule-book. Failing that, a ‘star chamber’ of Cabinet figures could simply assemble and call for the PM to step down in a coup similar to the toppling of Boris Johnson earlier this year.

The extraordinary collapse of Tory parliamentary discipline – illustrated by the monstering Ms Truss received at the hands of the ’22 last week – has sparked a furious round of blame-gaming, with the party whips most in the firing line. 

Such was Liz Truss’s anger that only the intervention of Deputy PM and close friend Therese Coffey stopped the PM from sacking her Chief Whip, Wendy Morton. 

One Truss ally said that the PM was ‘incandescent’ that she had to face the ’22 last week while Sir Graham was away and therefore unable to moderate proceedings and cool the hotheads’ attacks.

‘Liz was stitched up at the ’22. It was the same public-school boys attacking her at the ’22 who then went out to tweet about how good her tax cuts were.’

According to one MP, the Chief Whip had been totally unprepared by the anger vented against the PM in one-to-one meetings she has held. Joked one backbencher: ‘It’s the only meeting with a Chief Whip I’ve ever heard of where she comes out crying, rather than the MP she’s carpeting.’

The quip is understood to be a cruel reference to the rumour during the last Tory leadership contest but one that Ms Morton had broken down in tears over having to choose between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt for PM.

This time round, however, it is more than just one MP who is tearful with indecision as to just who is the so-called ‘unity candidate’ to end the party’s nightmare.

Some are convinced that

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