The PM's real fight is now for survival

THREE years after George Osborne's omnishambles pasty tax Budget the Tories won the 2015 General Election with a clear majority.

- KEVIN MAGUIRE

We are in uncharted political territory, rendering old maps increasingly unreliable guides to the future, but the Tories did emerge victorious after they were virtually written off in 2012.

Perhaps Labour ministers and MPs are clutching at straws after Downing Street's needless and self-defeating punch-up with Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves mercifully ditching a promise-breaking Income Tax hike in her own next Budget.

No 10's paranoid confirmation that a challenge to Keir Starmer was feared ironically means it's now more likely the Prime Minister could be toppled, even loyalists fed up with the mistakes and incompetence at the centre.