One of the great strengths that Liz Trust has is her popularity with the Conservative membership. This was seen in the months and years leading up to the July-September 2022 leadership election when she regularly topped the monthly Conservative Home survey of the most favoured Cabinet ministers.

If there was to be another ballot, and it’s far from certain that will be the case, it is probably best to assume that she would have similar levels of support. In the members’ voting last time she secured 57.4% of the vote over Rishi Sunak.

As we all know her term as Conservative leader and Prime Minister lasted just 49 days and saw one of the biggest runs on the pound that we’ve had in recent decades. A significant proportion of the Bank of Engand’s currency reserves went on stabilising sterling during the most difficult part of that crisis.

This was all sparked off by her speech at the September conference when she set out a vision for the country which was far far away from anything that we have known before and led to a market panic.

Even with this apparent black mark my guess is that in another Tory contest she would come out on top.

Mike Smithson