Suella Braverman has been nothing short of a total nightmare for Rishi Sunak in recent months.
It began just days before she was sacked as Home Secretary when she penned a scathing Op-Ed in the Telegraph criticising the police for its failure to ban Armistice Day protests.
Since then, she has launched intervention after intervention, accusing Sunak of blocking her plans to curb migration and being complacent on an issue which is so important to Conservative voters.
She has accused him of a "betrayal of Tory voters" and issuing a "slap in the face to the British public".
The former Home Secretary has said Sunak has "no personal mandate to be Prime Minister"
PA
The former Home Secretary has said Sunak has "no personal mandate to be Prime Minister" and accused him of "opting for wishful thinking as a comfort blanket to avoid having to make hard choices".
She has chipped away at his character, hitting the PM exactly where it hurts - reminding Tory MPs and members that he is not standing up for the values that matter to them, nor was he elected into the job.
Not only that - every intervention sees the former home secretary distance herself more and more from the Home Office's record on its key mission: stopping the boats.
She has somehow managed to leave Sunak to take the blame for the wreckage of a migration plan, the majority of which she oversaw.
As the UK approaches a general election, the question hanging over the Conservative Party is, who will take over from Sunak if the party suffers the defeat that everyone expects?
Braverman has manoeuvred herself well to be the favourite of the right. Her unofficial campaign has centred around being a straight-talking politician who does whatever it takes to stand up for traditional conservative values.
While her approval rating among the public is poor - a YouGov poll from last month put her at a net approval rating of -26 - she is acutely aware of the fact that it is not the public who would elect her next year
Her interventions have been a consistent rallying cry to the party membership - and they are the ones that hold the key to the top Tory job.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
While there is a risk that all her posturing may have ruffled too many feathers on both sides of the party, without those interventions Braverman knows she would have been tarnished with the same brush as Sunak on migration - an issue even more lethal than upsetting sections of her party.
Only time will tell if Braverman will throw her hat in the Tory leadership ring. But if she does, what is certainly clear is that her campaign started early.
