Liz Truss is fighting to save her six-week-old premiership after dramatically replacing her Chancellor and ditching a key pledge of her mini-budget.
Ms Truss sacked her close confidant Kwasi Kwarteng amid ongoing market turmoil over the mini budget and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt - the former Foreign Secretary who had backed Rishi Sunak for the top job.
At a short press conference earlier, the Prime Minister insisted that a U-turn on cancelling a rise in corporation tax and change in the Treasury was in the national interest to calm the markets.
However, former Tory Chancellor, Philip Hammond, warned the events of the past weeks had wrecked the party’s reputation for fiscal discipline, and had her growth agenda “in tatters”.
Allies of the Prime Minister were attempting to shore up her position on Friday evening, with Deputy Prime Minister, Thérèse Coffey, holding a Zoom call with Tory MPs. The call was reportedly poorly attended.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said in a newspaper interview that there needed to be a general election now, regardless of Ms Truss’s position. He said recent events had shown the Tories were at the “end of the road” after 12 years in power.
