Steerpike

Well, that's that. The disastrous premiership of Liz Truss will come to an end next week after 52 days in office, the shortest tenure in British political history. Who can replace her? Someone with a strong stomach, a glutton for punishment and a taste for sipping from a poisoned chalice. Below Mr S runs his eye over the likely candidates and a few no hopers... Rishi Sunak – The obvious favourite but there's still a sizeable anti-Sunak caucus in the party. The detractors may call him 'fishy Rishi' but his supporters crow that he got the big calls right. Boris Johnson – Can at least claim some kind of mandate, having won the 2019 election. As Churchill’s biographer, Johnson will be all too keen to encourage talk of a comeback.

Embattled, humiliated and lampooned, Liz Truss has few public allies left. And she certainly has one less after today, following the suspension of Jason Stein, her acting director of communications in No. 10. Stein is a longtime supporter who managed much of Truss's press operations during the summer leadership campaign. But shortly before PMQs the BBC reported that Stein had been suspended and is now due to face a formal investigation by the Propriety and Ethics Team in Whitehall. It follows a briefing in last week's Sunday Times in which unnamed No. 10 sources had ridiculed the prospect of Sajid Javid replacing Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor.

It seems it's a day for chatty rats in politics. First, longtime Hunt ally Steve Brine went on Politics Live and inadvertently called the Chancellor a 'fantastic Prime Minister.' And now, Michael Gove has told the JLA Speakers Bureau that the country is 'going through hell' and that 'all of us are going to face a hell of a lot of pain in the next two months.' Gee, tell us what you're really thinking, eh, Michael? In remarks reported by the Guardian, Gove told the event's host Sangita Myska that she was 'absolutely right' that it was 'no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes but when.

Hear Ye Hear Ye! The news today has broken that Kanye West – who calls himself Ye – has bought Parler, the Trumpist social media platform. The news was announced earlier by Parler CEO George Farmer, the son of Lord Farmer, the Conservative peer. ‘This deal will change the world and change the way the world thinks about free speech,’ said George. Farmer is also the husband of Candace Owens, the American MAGA celebrity, who appears to have been an important influence – is muse the right word? – in Ye’s conversion away from Hollywood La La Land and towards Trump-infused right-nationalist populism. Candace and Kanye both recently appeared together wearing ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirts.

In office, Liz Truss promised to be the 'disruptor in chief'. Unfortunately, most of that disruption has proved to be in the markets and the polls as her short-lived revolution tanked the standing of both her currency and her party. With Labour and mortgage rates on the rise, Truss's authority has disappeared within days. She's been forced to ditch her ideological soulmate Kwasi Kwarteng for Jeremy Hunt, the embodiment of Tory orthodoxy, and is now very much a prisoner of her party as they try to find someone – anyone – who can dig them out of their self-inflicted mess. Most of these discussions are happening behind closed doors as MPs weigh up their various options: a coronation or a contest? Ben or Boris? A fresh face or old?

In politics, where there’s death, there’s life. And as Liz Truss’s premiership crumbles before our eyes, all attention in SW1 is which lucky legislator gets to replace her. Second time Sunak? The people’s Penny? Back again Boris? Or perhaps the man who many wanted to run this summer but ended up dropping out: Ben Wallace, the popular Defence Secretary.  The former Scots Guards officer has been a long-standing fixture at the top of the ConservativeHome Cabinet rankings but opted to back Liz Truss in July rather than run himself. Instead, he extracted a pledge from the Trussette to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 - a pledge that appears to be in danger after Jeremy Hunt’s media round this morning.

Kwasi Kwarteng, we hardly knew ye. After 38 days, the Chancellor was unceremoniously axed from his post today as Liz Truss desperately tries to rescue her crumbling premiership. Memorable highlights of his five-week stint include the mini-Budget, firing Tom Scholar and being mistaken for Bernard Mensah. Indeed, the official mourning period appears in retrospect to have been the honeymoon of his tenure. Kwarteng and Truss were elected to parliament on the same day and have been close friends for more than a decade. They were co-authors, co-founders and successive leaders of the Free Enterprise Group, allies through the long years of May and Johnson. And yet that didn't stop her from sacking him as her no 2 and the next-door neighbour.