Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt 'dream ticket' to replace Liz Truss reported to be a non-starter - as both want to be PM

It had been suggested earlier this week that some Tory MPs are hoping Ms Truss could be replaced by Mr Sunak and Ms Mordaunt working together.

However, the Sunday Times has reported that the idea is a “non-starter” – because neither Mr Sunak or Ms Mordaunt is willing to be second in command.

The pair both stood in the leadership contest over the summer, with Mr Sunak finishing second and Ms Mordaunt third.

A friend of Mr Sunak’s told the paper: “He wouldn’t be her No 2. She had less support than him. He couldn’t be Penny’s chancellor.”

Another source, described as a ‘Sunak confidant’, said: “Does he want to be prime minister? Yes, if the proverbial ball falls out of the back of the scrum.”

But a former cabinet minister said that Ms Mordaunt also believes she is qualified to be the Prime Minister if Ms Truss is forced to stand down.

They said: “Penny is busy meeting lots of MPs and thinks she can do the job.”

The report said that those who had been pushing the idea of Mr Sunak and Ms Mordaunt working together also wanted a third figure more palatable to the right of the party to be part of a ‘triumvirate’ running the Government.

It suggested Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former Home Secretary Priti Patel were among those whose names were touted.

“We need a council of elders — William Hague, Michael Howard and others — to go to the prime minister and tell her she needs to go,” a former minister said,

“And that there needs to be a coronation.”

Mr Sunak, the MP for Richmond, had warned during the leadership contest about the implications of the plan for billions in immediate tax cuts being proposed by Liz Truss.

The Prime Minister was forced into a humiliating U-turn on Friday to keep Mr Sunak’s plan, announced when he was still Chancellor, to bring the corporation tax rate to 25 per cent in April next year, from 19 per cent currently following the negative market reaction to Kwasi Kwarteng’s now-notorious Mini Budget last month.

The Prime Minister nonetheless still has her defenders within the party.

Former culture minister Nadine Dorries, a loyal follower of Boris Johnson, wrote in the Daily Express: “The sad truth is that those scheming to eject the Prime Minister from Downing Street are the same plotters who conspired to get rid of Boris. They will not rest until they have anointed their own chosen leader in power.”

The Labour Party, looking on as it enjoys a mammoth lead in the polls, said that there were “no historical precedents” for the crisis the Truss administration had plunged the country into and has called for a general election to be held.