How much trouble is Liz Truss in? Just six weeks into her premiership, the Prime Minister’s economic plans are in tatters after she axed her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, reversed on her campaign pledge to scrap the scheduled corporation tax hike and brought in Jeremy Hunt as his successor. Now Hunt is calling the shots on the economy and he plans to reverse much of what the Truss government have announced so far, with tax rises and public spending cuts to come. Truss’s own supporters are privately asking what the point of her government is now.

Unsurprisingly, this has all led to talk among Tory MPs that the end is nigh. One Tory MP, Crispin Blunt, has come out publicly to call for Truss to go. The mood in the party soured last week after Truss’s difficult 1922 committee appearance and her painful press conference on Friday where she refused to offer an apology or engage with questions on why Kwarteng had been sacked. The papers are filled with apocalyptic source quotes predicting Truss’s imminent demise, while various potential successors are being talked up: from Ben Wallace as a great unifier to Rishi Sunak as the best placed candidate to calm the markets.

So, how realistic is the idea that Truss could be forced out within days or weeks? ‘It seems over,’ says a former minister. ‘Nothing can be worse than this.’ Other MPs say they believe a lot of letters of no confidence have already gone in and think there could be an attempt to oust her within a fortnight. Technically Truss is safe for a year – but a high number of letters could lead the 1922 committee to consider changing the rules.

What helps Truss is that there is no common consensus on who would be best placed to take over. In the past, MPs have held off on regicide by fearing the successor. ‘Changing leader is unrealistic,’ says a minister. It’s also the case that Downing Street plan to dig in. Jeremy Hunt’s appointment as Chancellor is intended to ease the concerns of MPs on the left of the party, thereby shoring up Truss’s position.

There are also plenty of Tory MPs who are very unhappy with the leadership and believe it could be terminal who still say it’s too early to move. Instead, they argue Truss is in last chance saloon. Rob Halfon has said Truss still has an opportunity to change tack and survive if she moves fast. Matt Hancock has suggested the answer is a reshuffle bringing in all the talent (no word on whether that includes the former health secretary). Meanwhile, on the right of the party, Christopher Chope has expressed his dissatisfaction that Truss U-turned on tax cuts – but said he still backs her: ‘I’m more confident that if we gave the Prime Minister our support, then she’d be back on track’.

In the case of both Theresa May and Boris Johnson, MPs took their time between the leader’s loss of authority and pushing them out. The danger for Truss is that a combination of bad polling, economic uncertainty and a lack of parliamentary support means that MPs conclude the situation is unsustainable and act now, worrying about what comes next after.