A DAY IN THE STRIFE..

7.35am Reuters newswire confirms that 48 letters have been received and a confidence vote will take place at 6pm. Game on.

A defiant May vows to contest the vote “with everything I have got”. Standing at a podium in Downing Street, the Prime Minister warnsthat any new leader will be faced with the choice of “delaying or even stopping Brexit”. Earlier confirmed her meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had been cancelled.

A succession of Tory Cabinet ministers pledge their loyalty to the Prime Minister but deep party divisions apparent on the airwaves.

Prime Minister’s Questions. Chancellor Philip May in the gallery looks down on the chamber for PMQs.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemns the Government for “dithering and delay” and the SNP’s Ian Blackford calls on May to resign in half-hearted attacks designed not to provoke Tory MPs into a show of unity. May turns every answer into a reminder that the real enemy is the Labour Party and Corbyn and there are cheers when Ken Clarke, the Father of the House, asks a supportive question, saying a leadership challenge is “unhelpful, irrelevant and irresponsible” to loud cheers in the chamber. May looks relaxed as she leaves the chamber.

Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, who is on maternity leave after giving birth to her first child at the end of October, tweeted her support for May, describing her as having “cojones of steel”.

Heavy hint from Downing Street source on how May will play her meeting with 1922 Committee: “She does not believe that this vote, today is about who leads the Conservative party into the next election – it is about whether it is sensible to