Will Liz Truss resign today?

[sunnydaytoday0]

Or maybe Tuesday at the latest? Would she really want to face the absolute public humiliation of PMQs on Wednesday?

I have a romaine lettuce which looks edible and is 2 weeks old. Sorry

I hope not. I don't want her as priminister but one of the alternatives being heavily suggested is Ben Wallace and he will be even worse.

Is there anything the public can do to force an election?

Is there a petition? Is there anyway that the king would have to get involved? I guess not. Can we all write to someone?

There is a petition, being debated in parliament today.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619781

I think the king can call a GE but practically it doesn't matter whether he can or not because he won't (and nor should he).

No, there is no mechanism for the public to force a GE.

They have to debate the petition to call a GE today which should be interesting, it only has 600,000 signatures though so they'll probably waft it away. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619781

X post Bones

Not a chance!

What if it has all been a cunning plan to get interest rates up quickly ? Get Ms pork markets and Kwarteng to chuck a fiscal event in, step back watch it all unfold, then off they go and someone else comes in looking sensible, rolls back on all the promised tax cuts and introduces Austerity II. Markets calm and we all end up much worse off, again.

Hunt is making an emergency statement in parliament at 3:30 - it seems they've decided they can't wait until 31st Oct to give more info on what they'll be doing.

@BonesOfWhatYouBelieve

Wow I'd never even thought that party member who can vote for leader/PM could be non UK citizens with no right to vote here! That's spectacularly undemocratic. I'd assumed it would only be UK citizens who are eligible to vote here.

Could some foreign government just put a few plants in for the nominal membership fee (£20??) and pick our PM???

We definitely need to change that system!

Is there any way to find this out?

Yes!

www.conservativesabroad.org/get-involved

As it says here, "Membership of Conservatives Abroad is open to all who live abroad and pledge support for the UK Conservative Party. You do not have to be a voter or a UK citizen."

And "You are entitled to all the benefits of party membership, including participation in the Conservative Policy Forum, attendance at party conferences and a vote in the election of the party leader."

What isn't clear, because they won't say, is how many of their members fall into various categories, such as non-voters.

Also if you give a donation of more than £500 to the party you do need to be on the electoral register.

But you are right @caroleanboneparte it does seem a bit bonkers that people who are not entitled to vote in GE's can vote to pick a PM. Although I wonder if other parties will fall foul of this too ?

Graham Brady (chair of 1922 committee) has been on holiday but is back today. At least 3 MPs (Bridgen, Blunt and A N Other whose name I can't recall) have publicly said she needs to go and it's rumoured that many more have sent in letters (one report reckoned 100 or so).

I think that if those rumours are true, she may well be getting a visit from the men in grey suits. If so, they may be able to persuade her that she is an utter liability and is damaging the party, and she'll resign. Then the MPs could agree among themselves who they want as leader and have just one nomination for leader, so no need for an election and it could all be done and dusted quickly.

Normally, I would be delighted with the Tory party destroying itself, but she is so damaging to the country, I'd prefer her gone. I also think that Hunt is actually in charge now, on a caretaker basis, and she's leader in name only.

It's out of her hands but I suspect Jeremy Hunt will want her to hang on for at least 2 more weeks- he will be able to position himself as a successor candidate but only if given enough time. If she goes this week the chances of him taking power go down. So I think he'll continue to be critical of her decisions whilst also saying she should be given a chance to continue!

She won't resign this morning because they're hoping Hunt's statement will dominate the conversation for the next 24 hours. I do think she is surviving day to day though. She'll see what the response to Hunt is today, maybe sit it out tomorrow and then resign before PMQ's.

Interestingly, Boris Johnson is still living at Chequers, where all these emergency meetings with Hunt were held all weekend. Was he at these meetings too? Or is he on holiday again? He wasn't at PMQ's last week.

To join the Labour Party you don't need to be eligible to vote in GEs. To join Labour International you do need to be a UK citizen though.

"It is true that, like the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats also give overseas members the right to vote in party leadership elections, whether they are British or not. Membership of Labour International, however, is conditional upon British citizenship."

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62503218.amp

They have to debate the petition to call a GE today which should be interesting, it only has 600,000 signatures though so they'll probably waft it

Conservative double standards!
That's nearly 4 times as many as Tory party members who voted in their leadership election.

That's possible too - he hasn't ruled out wanting to be PM (was asked directly over the weekend and slid over the answer). He's definitely the one in charge right now, not her, but he needs time to make that real.

Or he just keeps her on nominally, and the power moves to number 11 for the rest of her tenure, which might be easier to handle.

It is quite hilarious to me the people who think that Starmer & co could do any better at solving the problems than the present government, especially if he had his left wing and Sturgeon round his neck!

And the Tory's are doing a great job arent they? They are the ones who have been in power for 12 years, this is their own doing no other party

To be fair, given the current polls he wouldn't have Sturgeon "round his neck". He wouldn't need SNP support.

Oh come on! Truss and Kwarteng have just poured water on a chip pan fire. They’ve caused the current problems, incase you hadn’t noticed!

The Tories created half the current problems, and yet somehow you think they'd still be better placed to fix them.

Interestingly, Boris Johnson is still living at Chequers, where all these emergency meetings with Hunt were held all weekend. Was he at these meetings too? Or is he on holiday again? He wasn't at PMQ's last week.

Oh God. That's interesting. In a bad way.