Today Kwasi Kwarteng attempted to calm concerns in his party over the fallout from the not-so-mini Budget – telling MPs: ‘We are one team and need to remain focused’.

That message is likely to face some resistance after the latest polling. Tonight the Times has published a new YouGov poll which gives Labour a 33-point lead. Yes, you read that right. It is thought to be the largest poll lead enjoyed by a political party since the late 1990s. It comes after a poll earlier this week gave Labour a 17-point lead. According to the survey, just 37 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters would stick with the party were an election held now.

While a fall in support for the Tories ought not come as much of a surprise, the scale of the change will deeply alarm ministers and MPs. When Tony Blair won a landslide in 1997, it was with a 13-point lead. A 33-point lead suggests an existential threat to the party. What’s more, it’s not as though it’s about to get better anytime soon. While Team Truss hope that they can improve things at party conference, it could prove to be a tinder box. Much of the financial pain from rising interest rates is still to come – and there could also be the fallout from spending cuts if Kwarteng tries to signal to the markets that these are coming down the line.

The poll will certainly help those MPs making the case that Truss needs to change tack. A growing number of Tories want her to delay plans to abolish the 45p rate of tax for highest earners (at minimum). Others want more – including a change of Chancellor. There are also calls for Truss to drastically shake-up the Downing Street operation. Labour’s poll lead is so large that you can expect more talk of letters going in and questions about her longevity in No. 10. As an MP who backed Sunak said to me this week: ‘If you’d asked me on Friday if a different politician would lead us into the next election, I would have said not in a million years. Now I think there is a 40% chance.’  Following the poll, one senior Tory tells Coffee House: ‘This is beyond bad. She needs to so something to grip this’. The former minister George Freeman – who backed Penny Mordaunt for leader – has this evening called on the Cabinet to agree with the Prime Minister and Chancellor a ‘Plan B which can hold’ arguing the current plan for growth cannot ‘command market or voter confidence’. Former Chief Whip Julian Smith has in response said ‘the government must scrap 45p’ and ‘take responsibility for the link between last Friday and the impact on peoples mortgages’.

In response, expect Truss’s supporters to call for calm – insist the markets will calm down, cite global turbulence and point to the election being two years away. But one thing is clear: just a few weeks ago the polling suggested voters knew little about Truss and were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Friday’s fiscal event means many voters are now making up their mind – and it’s in Keir Starmer’s favour.