PMQs WATCH LIVE: Liz Truss breaks cover after Budget humiliation – as Tories plot to oust her

Lame duck Liz Truss is facing a humiliating clash with Sir Keir Starmer after she junked her entire economic strategy.

The PM could come under fire from her own side as senior Tories – including Sajid Javid – take part in Prime Minister’s Questions.

And she faces more pressure after Tory whips reportedly warned a vote on fracking tonight, tabled by Labour, will be treated as a motion of confidence in the government.

The session kicks off at 12pm and this story will be updated here as it unfolds.

In a bid to stop MPs launching a coup, the PM has started inviting her angry backbenchers into No10 for drinks.

One of those who attended a gathering on Tuesday evening told the Mirror that Ms Truss was more convincing behind closed doors than in her disastrous public appearances, but they warned she is “still in trouble”.

In a further sign of trouble, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt met with Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, last night.

Sources insisted it was routine but it came a day after the PM also met Sir Graham – who has a powerful say over her fate as the voice of Tory MPs.

Even Tory supporters of Liz Truss have been turning against the PM.

One MP last week told the Mirror their “hysterical” colleagues had a “death wish” adding: “It’s not as bad as everyone makes out.”

But today the MP said: “That was before Kwasi was sacked. Now, I don’t know.”

The MP predicted Liz Truss would not be ousted immediately – but suggested there were doubts over her future.

James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, refused to say how many more mistakes Ms Truss can afford to make. He told Sky News “the plan is not to make mistakes” and “we don’t aim to make mistakes”. But he added: “Mistakes happen.”

In a perfect storm for the PM and vulnerable Brits, food prices are going up quicker than at any point in the past 40 years creating fresh misery for shoppers.

Inflation rose to a whopping 10.1% in September. The increase was driven by food prices, leaping by 14.5% compared with the same month last year – the largest annual rise since 1980.

It means an average trolley of shopping that would cost £100 a year ago is now £114.50. The price of cereals, milk and cheese all went up along with energy bills and transport costs.

And Ms Truss faces a growing Tory rebellion as she paves the way to strip millions of pensioners of hundreds of pounds a year.

The PM is poised to axe the pensions triple lock, which guarantees payments rise by the highest of 2.5%, wages or inflation – in other words, 10.1%.

But the PM is preparing to ditch the pledge and use the 5.5% earnings figure instead – making the New State Pension £433 a year lower than expected.

Tory peer Baroness Ros Altmann, a former Pensions Minister, warned: “Pensioners cannot be abandoned because we have a short-term problem.

“Either we have a welfare state or we don’t.”

She added: “I find it incomprehensible that any government could treat pensioners in this way.

“One minute, don’t worry, you’re protected. Next minute, well, you might not be protected. The next minute, don’t worry, you’re definitely protected. And then the next minute, put it all up in the air.”

After five Tory MPs publicly urged the PM to quit and a sixth wrote of “dumpster fires”, a seventh, Steve Double, warned the PM will soon “have to consider her position and step aside”.

He told Times Radio: “I think it’s becoming abundantly clear when you look at the loss of confidence in her as Prime Minister from the general public, and increasingly I think the loss of confidence in her from the parliamentary party, that we are going to get to the point where she really does have to consider her position and for the good of the country, step aside, and I think we will probably come to that place quite soon.”

Mr Double urged the PM to protect an inflation rise not just to pensions, but also working-age benefits like Universal Credit.

He added: “We should not be balancing the books for the situation that we now find ourselves in, off the backs of those who need that support the most.”