‘The game is up’: Three Tory MPs publicly call for Liz Truss to go as pressure mounts on PM
Conservative MPs have started to publicly call for Liz Truss to go as they do not believe she can survive the current political and economic crisis.
Crispin Blunt, former chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, was the first Tory MP to put his head above the parapet since Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor on Friday.
He said “the game is up” for Ms Truss after just six weeks as prime minister as he does not believe she can survive the current crisis, which has seen weeks of economic turmoil after the mini-budget.
“I think the game is up and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed,” he told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil Show.
He later told Sky News it was “blindingly obvious” that Ms Truss had to go.
“The principle emotions of people watching her, doing her best to present, is some combination of pity, contempt or anger,” he said.
“I’m afraid it just won’t wash and we need to make a change.”
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen also called for Ms Truss to quit as PM, telling the Telegraph that his party “cannot carry on like this” and adding: “Our country, its people and our party deserve better.”
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Jamie Wallis tweeted: “In recent weeks, I have watched as the government has undermined Britain’s economic credibility and fractured our party irreparably. Enough is enough.
“I have written to the prime minister to ask her to stand down as she no longer holds the confidence of this country.”
Asked how the party will get rid of her, Mr Blunt, who is standing down at the next election, said: “If there is such a weight of opinion in the parliamentary party that we have to have a change, then it will be effected.
“Exactly how it is done and exactly under what mechanism… but it will happen.”
Under current Conservative Party rules, a confidence vote in a leader cannot take place until they have been in power for at least a year, so she is theoretically safe until next September.
However, there has been talk among MPs of the powerful 1922 backbench committee of Tory MPs of changing the rules to reduce that buffer period.
If enough MPs submit no confidence letters in the PM, then the 1922 executive may have little choice but to change them.
The committee’s treasurer, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, told Sky News the rules would only be changed if “an overwhelming majority of the party wish us to do that”.
If the committee was satisfied the conditions had been met “then they would agree to change the rules”, he said.
He added, however: “I think we’re a long way off that at the moment.”
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Can Jeremy Hunt save Liz Truss?
Truss ‘unlikely to be in No 10 at Christmas’
Andrew Mitchell, who ran new chancellor Jeremy Hunt‘s leadership campaign, told the BBC if Ms Truss “cannot do the job, I’m afraid that she will go”.
Former Chancellor George Osborne said Ms Truss is unlikely to still be in Downing Street by Christmas.
He called her a “PINO – prime minister in name only” and said Ms Truss is “hiding in Number 10” as pressure mounts.
Asked if she can survive, he told the Andrew Neil Show: “Probably not.”
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And Mark Garnier, Conservative MP for Wyre Forest, today questioned Ms Truss’s position but stayed clear of outright calling for her to go.
He said those who agree with her appointing Mr Hunt as chancellor are split into two camps – those who believe MPs should give Ms Truss time, and those who want to “rip the plaster off”.
“I think power is a very fickle thing, and I think Liz Truss is in office but is not in power,” he told BBC Politics Midlands.
“The question is, do we give her a chance or do we rip the plaster off?
“The really important question is do we feel confident that we should be going into the next general election with Liz Truss? If we don’t, I think we need to rip the plaster off.”
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‘Govt is behind Liz Truss’
Party needs a fundamental reset
Alicia Kearns, the new chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said the party needed a “fundamental reset” but said it was difficult to know if Ms Truss should go.
“Ultimately it is a very difficult one because I think you know we’ve had the questions around our moral competency,” she told Times Radio.
“We’ve now got questions around our fiscal competency.
“I don’t want further questions around even our ability to continue to govern as a party and our ability to stay united. It’s an incredibly difficult one, and ultimately I need to listen to colleagues and speak to colleagues over coming days.
“But do we need a fundamental reset? Without question.”
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Tory grandee and pollster Lord Hayward told Sky News it is going to be “very difficult” for Ms Truss to remain as PM after the past few weeks and a new chancellor after just 38 days.
On Sunday morning, both Mr Hunt and Andrew Griffith, financial secretary to the Treasury, said they think Ms Truss will remain as they showed their loyalty to the PM.
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Comedy writer Bill Dare, – who worked on shows including Spitting Image and Dead Ringers – has died after an accident overseas, his agent said.
Described as a “super producer” by his peers, Dare, 64, worked on eight series of hugely popular satire puppet show Spitting Image.
Airing on ITV during the 1980s and 1990s, the show delighted in lampooning public figures including politicians, celebrities and royalty, winning BAFTAs and Emmys. It was rebooted in 2020.
Dare also created Dead Ringers, a comedy impressions show broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
He also produced The Now Show, a satirical take on the news which ran on Radio 4 from 1998 to 2024.
Dare worked on a wide range of comedy shows during his career, including the radio production of The Mary Whitehouse Experience in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He had also written several novels.
In a statement released on Monday, his agent JFL Agency confirmed he died at the weekend.
A spokesperson said: “We are shocked and greatly saddened to have to announce the death of our brilliant client Bill Dare, who died at the weekend following an accident overseas.
“Our thoughts are with his wife Lucy, daughter Rebecca, and with all of Bill’s family and friends who will be devastated by his loss.
“Bill was a truly legendary producer and writer, and his comedy instincts were second to none.”
Oasis depicted on Spitting Image in 1996. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
Colleagues were quick to pay tribute and reflect on his talent.
Impressionist Jon Culshaw wrote on X: “It’s impossible to express the unreal sense of loss at the passing of the incredible Bill Dare. The wisest comedy alchemist and the dearest, dearest friend. Much love to Lucy and all Bill’s family and friends. We shall all miss him more than we can say.”
David Baddiel posted on the social media platform: “Just heard that the original producer of The Mary Whitehouse Experience on radio, Bill Dare, has died. Bill was an amazing creative force. I owe him much. RIP.”
Former EastEnders actress Tracy-Ann Oberman said she was “devastated” and that her “entire comedy career was down to Bill”.
She wrote: “When I was on the BBC Radio 4 rep company early on in career – I ran into Bill in the corridors – He asked if I was good at accents. I said yes.
“He cast me in a sketch show. I had to do about 15 different accents. We recorded in front of a live audience at Broadcasting House – afterwards Bill said ‘Why have I never met you – you’re going to have a big career’.
“He was incredibly loyal and supportive and really opened a path for me into the R4 comedy world and then TV having come out of the RSC and theatre it was all new. I will always be grateful. Fly high Bill.”
Comedian and writer Mark Steel wrote: “This is so grim. Bill was a compassionate hearty soul with the ability to be beautifully grumpy, a marvellously thoughtful comic mind.
“He’d argue but always listen and you’d always laugh, he made a million shows and wanted them all to matter and would have made a million more.”
Have I Got News for You writer Pete Sinclair said: “I am utterly devastated by Bill’s death. I still can’t believe it. He was a comedy genius. A hugely talented writer as well as a brilliant producer. A close friend and co-writer. I cannot begin to say how much I’ll miss him.”
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Julia McKenzie, comedy commissioner for Radio 4, said: “I am so terribly sorry to hear this tragic news and my thoughts are with Bill’s wife, family and friends.
“Bill has been a huge part of Radio 4 comedy for decades, as a writer and producer, and listeners will have heard his legendary name at the end of many of their favourite shows.
“Bill was a comedy obsessive, and very instinctive about making the funniest choices when it came to writing, directing and editing.
“He cared so much about his work that in the production booth during Dead Ringers you’d see him crouched over the script, utterly focused on the show.
“He was funny and very dry in person, amusingly cynical when he needed to be and always pushed to keep the comedy he made, and particularly satire, spiky.
“I’ve known and worked with him for 18 years and like many I can’t believe he has gone, he will leave a big hole in the comedy world and in our hearts.”
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