It's not been a good first 10 days back for the Prime Minister.

Since last Monday, he's lost his housing secretary and deputy PM Angela Rayner, his ambassador to

Washington, Lord Mandelson, and his director of political strategy, Paul Ovendon.

On top of that, serious questions are now being asked

about his ability to lead the party into the next election in four years' time. And the possibility

of the government needing a bailout from the IMF is something that more and more commentators are

beginning to consider as the Chancellor's handling of the economy comes under the microscope

ahead of November's planned budget.

It'll be 50 years next year, as it happened since Jim Callahan's Labour government had to ask for a £2.9 billion emergency loan from the IMF during the 1976.

Sterling crisis.

I'm Mark Carruthers, and on this week's red lines, we're looking at the politics of UK economics, with one eye, of course, on what it could mean for people in this neck of the woods, given that we're so dependent on how things play out in Whitehall.

End up, there are a lot of plates spinning in Downing Street at the moment, and a few of them have come crashing to the ground already.

Well, Mark, who would have thought when Stormer stormed to victory in the election

was 170-odd-seat majority in comparison?

You remember being made back then about Blair's victory in 97,

which gave us 13 years of Labour government.

And here we are, Mark, what, 14 months in,

and already, as you say, big questions

being asked as to whether or not he will still

be around when the next general

election comes along. And the big

problem for him, of course, is that the focus

...