Boris Johnson no-confidence vote: prime minister addresses Tory MPs ahead of crucial ballot – live

Good morning. After four days of tributes to the nation’s much-loved head of state, attention focuses to the head of government, Boris Johnson, who is held in rather lower esteem than the Queen – both at home and across the world – and who now seems almost certain to face a no-confidence vote of Tory MPs within the next day or two.

A vote of no confidence has to take place when Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee, receives letters demanding one from 15% of Tory MPs (which at the moment means 54 of them). There are reports that Brady is set to announce that this threshold has been met within the hour.

This is from ITV’s Paul Brand.

And this is from Lucy Fisher from Times Radio.

The Tory MP Sir Roger Gale told the Today programme a few minutes ago that Brady is “tight as a clam” and he has not yet confirmed that an announcement is coming. But broadcasters often tend to hear about these things first (they need to get cameras in place) and at Westminster the assumption is that a vote is now happening. The last time Brady announced a no-confidence vote in a PM (Theresa May), he did so in an announcement at 8am.

Today I will almost exclusively be focusing on the Tory leadership crisis, but there are two events on the agenda worth noting.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

1.30pm: Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee on the cost of living.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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