A depressed Tory MP in Parliament summed up the current predicament facing their colleagues.
“It just doesn’t feel that things would be any worse if we had a change of leader, I just think it is worth us trying,” they bemoaned.
This was a Tory MP who has remained loyal to every Prime Minister in a tumultuous four years of government and never voted against their party but has had enough.
The MP is one of many abandoned by the party machine with no funding coming to help fight a seat which is still winnable but under threat from Labour.
“I have very little to lose,” the MP said.
But the final straw with Rishi Sunak was the net migration figures today – a new record over 48 months meaning that more than 1.3 million people have come to this country in the last two years.
Another MP on the right of the party was even clear saying that today’s figures “are the trigger which will persuade many colleagues to hand in letters”.
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According to the MP, there are “ongoing meetings” discussing how to remove the Prime Minister and trigger the vote of confidence required to force him out.
For that to happen 53 Conservative MPs need to write to the 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady asking for a vote.
But even with the palpable anger over net migration hitting almost 700,000 for the second year running, it is still not straightforward.
Lee Anderson, still Deputy Chairman, is a loud advocate on the right of the party to not try to remove Mr Sunak arguing voters will not forgive yet another coup – a third in 18 months.
But some colleagues are unimpressed: “Lee has been bought off. He’s looking after number 1, himself.”
Despite this support for the Prime Minister from Anderson and others, another MP believes that it is “when not if” there is a vote of confidence.
There is also anger over a briefing operation against his predecessor Suella Braverman trying to frame her style of “tough rhetoric but no action” as being the reason for the disastrous figures.
Mrs Braverman and her allies were out in force today saying “enough is enough!”
Her friend and mentor Sir John Hayes said: “Suella tried to get them to stuff all the time in the Home Office to deal with this but was resisted all the time by owning Street and the Treasury and others.”
He was one of the more vocal critics of the figures describing them in terms of “a disaster and total catastrophe which poses one of the greatest existential threats to this country.”
Others were public in their anger, including Stoke North MP Jonathan Gullis who said: “Today’s net migration figures from the ONS are completely unacceptable, and will rightly anger/frustrate the British people.
“We must take drastic action now to bring legal migration down, as well as do whatever we must to stop the boats.
“The Prime Minister and Home Secretary must listen to ideas, like those of the New Conservatives, to enable us to get these numbers down quickly.
“Three things that we suggest that can be done immediately are increase the salary threshold for the main skilled work visa to a minimum of £38,000; extend the closure of the student dependent route to those enrolled on one-year research Master’s degrees; and raise the minimum combined income threshold for sponsoring a spouse.”
But the same sticking points remain namely who would be leader if Sunak was gone.
James Cleverly’s brief stint as Home Secretary has, apparently, already ruled him out as a compromise candidate.
“That’s nothing to do with s***-gate,” said one MP.
The other names in the frame remain Penny Mordaunt, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch.
All have their supporters, all have strong detractors.
Others wonder whether “a surprise candidate needs to emerge”.
It may be that this uncertainty and division is what will save Sunak.
But things are getting bad when one senior Tory not fighting a seat at the next election admits privately that their family “will almost certainly vote for Reform UK”.
January remains the make-or-break month for Sunak after a hard Christmas.
