Tory MPs plot to replace Liz Truss with Rishi Sunak or Penny Mordaunt

Tory MPs are already plotting to replace Liz Truss as as the leading party because of its disastrous first month in office, a senior conservative has said.

Paul Goodman, editor of the influential ConservativeHome website, said Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt were among MPs are chosen as possible replacements for the Prime Minister.

This comes after Ms Truss' first budget in office saw the pound sterling and interest rates on the public debt and mortgage rise.

A slate of unfunded tax cuts, mainly for high earners, sparked chaos in financial markets and saw the reservoir of Tory poll ratings hit record highs.

A poll released on Wednesday of Tory heartland seats in the south of England found The Bours capturing swaths of 'blue wall' safe seats of the party, while national polls, but Ms. Truss' party is twenty to thirty points behind the opposition.

"All kinds of different people are talking about all kinds of different things because the Tory backbench MPs are looking for a possible replacement for Kwasi Kwarteng, even a possible replacement for Liz Truss," said Mr Goodman, himself a former Tory MP.

"All sorts of names are floating around , Rishi Sunak, even Boris Johnson, Kit Malthouse, Sajid Javid.

"But one idea that's been floating around is that Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak, who, after all, got just about both third of the deputies' votes, come to some sort of arrangement and essentially take ent the baton.

Ms Mordaunt and Mr Sunak both re-featured Ms Truss in the Tory leadership race, which the Prime Minister won just a month ago .

Mr. Sunak notably used the contest to warn that Ms Truss's economic policy - which is based on i deas promoted by right-wing think tanks - would lead to economic disaster.

When asked if a bid to replace the current Conservative leader would be decided without party members, Mr Goodman replied: "Yes, I guess the arrangement would be to reach an agreement on a candidate so that the members are a cut.

"I must say that I myself am not very enthusiastic about this kind of idea, nor about the idea that the Conservative Party get rid of what would be its fourth leader in seven years."

Existing Tory rules are believed to protect Ms Truss from direct challenges by MPs for a year from her election - but it is understood that these could be changed if the right party authorities were put in place

Yet such an attempt to replace her without a member vote could be foiled by any other MP choosing to stand for the leadership race.

At a party meeting last night, the 1922 committee, snappy Tory MPs, pushed for more about-face on the Prime Minister's budget, in what was described as a 'robust exchange across a range of opinions'.

MPs pushed Ms Truss to reverse his decision to retain corporation tax, a measure which has cost the Treasury £18.7 billion and is expected to leave a black hole in public finances.

But the Prime Minister reportedly doubled his tax cuts at a Tory fundraising dinner at £1,500 a ticket on Wednesday night, reports the Daily Telegraph.< /p>< p>Speaking on BBC Radio 4, James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, defended the Prime Minister and said abandoning Ms Truss now "would be a disastrously bad idea, not only politically but economically".