THERESA May will be ousted as Prime Minister before Christmas.

It is a bold prediction I have been making for months, but now no longer looks particularly bold.

In July I wrote: “It appears her control is diminishing, and party discipline is disappearing.

“Where does this all lead?

“A leadership contest could happen within weeks.”

After hanging on through the summer, she has managed to last to party conference season.

This was billed as a keynote speech where the PM, fighting for her political life, would turn it around and reassert her leadership.

Although there was no apology for making the disastrous decision to hold an early general election that lost the Conservative majority, early on in the speech she did accept responsibility for her presidential style commentators believe helped lose votes.

Soon after that though almost everything that could go wrong in the speech did.

All of what happened was out of her control. She couldn’t help being ill and a comedian managing to issue her a P45.

By the way, after all the terrorist incidents recently, how it is a possible someone could approach a MP on stage, while security looked on?

As for the set falling apart with letters dropping off, that was simply a PR disaster that she would have expected her team to be able to prevent.

This shambolic Manchester speech though just adds to the image of a damaged and weak PM.

Don’t be fooled by Cabinet ministers rushing to offer praise over an “excellent” speech – they are doing that to show loyalty.

The problem was the message and key announcements were lost.

For example, few were talking about a positive announcement – that there will be a change the law to move to an opt-out system on organ donation.

It is something many have always wanted to see and could potential save hundreds of lives, yet it was completely overlooked.

Be in no doubt plotters are now working out a plan to remove her from the top job. They will be working out the timing and ensuring there is a candidate they can rally behind.

There is only one way this ends now – a new Prime Minister before 2018.