THERESA May is to face down her critics at a crunch meeting of Tory MPs in the Commons later today.

Westminster was awash with rumours yesterday that 48 of her backbenchers had called for a leadership contest.

That’s 15% of all Tory MPs, the magic number needed under party rules to start the no confidence process.

Speculation was only slightly quashed when Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, who is responsible for any vote, said he would not be delivering any news to No 10 “today”.

In a bizarre twist, there were reports that some Tory MPs believe No 10 have planted “decoy” letters demanding the confidence vote.

Up to eight letters demanding a ballot are said to have been sent in by loyal MPs posing as rebels.

The idea is that they will be withdrawn if the total of 48 is reached, creating a delay and alerting the whips to the danger.

A minister told the London Evening Standard: “We think this is their ‘canary in the coal mine’ that would alert the Chief Whip to an attack on the Prime Minister and stop it from being successful.

“The moment that 48 letters are sent in, the decoys will tell the whips.”

There are plenty of rumours over how many letters Brady has been sent, but the secretive MP is keeping the real number close to his chest.

Only five MPs have publicly admitted sending letters, but reports over the weekend said that tallies conducted by rebels suggested around 45 or 46 MPs had submitted.

Speaking on Newsnight, former Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it would be a “total indulgence” for Tory MPs to have a leadership contest right now.

“I think it’s a huge mistake,” she said. “It would be total indulgence to think of the Conservative Party having a leadership election in the middle of these incredibly difficult negotiations.”

Meanwhile, the stepfather of a patient in Great Ormond Street Hospital has called for David Davis’s former chief of staff to apologise after he appeared to call the sick child a “pathetic cretin”.

Stewart Jackson, a former Tory MP who became Davis’s top adviser when he was Brexit secretary replied to a picture tweeted by Anthony Hobley of his 11-year-old stepson holding a European Union flag.

The boy was recovering from an operation and had been upset to miss the People’s Vote march in London.

On Monday night, Jackson replied: “What a pathetic cretin.”

Hobley said he was stunned by the tweet. He said Jackson should apologise “to my family and for the tone of political debate” in the country. “I don’t believe people honestly worried about the future of our country should be subject to trolling by senior political figures, especially not when it involves children,” he said.

He added: “I was surprised to find out he is former Conservative MP and adviser to David Davis when he was running the UK’s Brexit negotiations,” he said. “Comments like these from senior people in political life set the tone of political debate in our country and I believe harm politics in our country.”

Jackson later deleted the offending tweet and told Politico he was calling the stepfather a cretin, not the 11-year-old.

“I think it’s awful that people with extreme views on remain like this parent should invade a sick child’s privacy to make a political point,” he said.

The science minister, Sam Gyimah, criticised the comment.

“Dehumanising and derogatory language, no matter how strongly you agree, is unacceptable in our political discourse,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I think that was a low bar, and I hope we do not go back to that. No one can take credibly or seriously people who uses that language.”

There was some good news for May after Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the EU was set to offer a UK-wide customs union as a way around the Irish backstop issue.

That’s close to what the Prime Minister has been clamouring for in recent Brexit negotiations.

But May would still have to cross one of her red lines and accept a Northern Ireland only backstop.