Theresa May told she has six months in Downing Street as PM picks top team

Return: Theresa May received a warm welcome back to Downing Street on Friday despite her election humiliation
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Sebastian Mann10 June 2017
WEST END FINAL

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Theresa May was today set to name the rest of her top team as a bitter civil war threatened to engulf her party.

The PM has positions to fill in her government after a humiliating election in which the Conservatives shed seats as Labour made stunning gains across the country.

In London, two ministers were ousted in Battersea and Croydon Central as blue constituencies turned red.

Eight MPs short of a majority, Mrs May now has limited room for manoeuvre after her presidential-style campaign left senior figures keen to pin the blame on the party leader.

Amid reports that senior Tories were sounding out potential replacements for Mrs May, prominent Conservative MP Heidi Allen said the Prime Minister had six months at most left in Downing Street.

Former minister Anna Soubry called on Mrs May to sack her joint chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, after she complained about their central roles in the campaign.

The PM has already confirmed that key names will keep their jobs in her new government, which is set to be propped up by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

After speculation the PM would use a solid win in the election to move Philip Hammond from the Treasury, he and other potential successors as Tory leader, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, remained in place.

With Brexit Secretary David Davis and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon also staying put, there were suggestions changes could just centre on replacing the eight ministers who lost their seats as the Tory Commons tally fell to 318.

Mrs May's decision to seek a deal with the DUP, and the role of her two closest advisers in the faltering election campaign drew criticism in Tory ranks.

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In an apparent side-swipe at a hook-up with the DUP, a party which strongly opposes marriage equality, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson tweeted a link to a speech she made in Belfast in support of same-sex marriage.

Ms Davidson, who became engaged to partner Jen Wilson in May 2016, later said she had received assurances from the PM over gay rights.

Ruth Davidson with her partner Jen Wilson
Lesley Martin/AFP/Getty Images

She told the BBC: "I was fairly straightforward with her (Mrs May) and I told her that there were a number of things that count to me more than the party.

"One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights.

"I asked for a categoric assurance that if any deal or scoping deal was done with the DUP there would be absolutely no rescission of LGBTI rights in the rest of the UK, in Great Britain, and that we would use any influence that we had to advance LGBTI rights in Northern Ireland."

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