NICOLA Sturgeon has criticised Liz Truss for overseeing a “self-inflicted crisis” as she accused the Prime Minsiter of acting "without a shred of credibility".

The First Minister was speaking after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced huge reversals to Ms Truss’s chaos-hit mini budget which cost Kwasi Kwarteng his job.

Under the plans, the two-year energy price cap guarantee will only be universal until April while the majority of the tax cuts announced a little more than three weeks ago have been scrapped.

Speaking at Bute House before setting out the Scottish Government’s economic case for independence, the First Minister said that “to say this is a UK Government and a Prime Minister without a shred of credibility is an under-statement”.

She added: “Indeed, it is perhaps a sign of how badly broken UK politics is that the Prime Minister’s resignation has not already been tendered.

“It will also be galling, I think, that the one measure the Prime Minister has repeatedly cited to effectively justify the market turmoil of recent weeks, the energy price cap, has also now been curtailed – leaving many people and possibly many businesses without the support with energy bills that they were, before today, expecting.

“There’s no doubt this is a self-inflicted crisis for Liz Truss and it is humiliating in quite an unprecedented way in terms of the climbdown.

“I think the sooner this Prime Minister and indeed this entire government departs office, the better that will be for everyone.”

Ms Sturgeon's move comes after Tory backbenchers began losing faith in the Prime Minsiter, with a handful calling on her to resign.

Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said the Conservatives “have lost all credibility”.

She said: “The Chancellor said that growth requires ‘confidence and stability’ yet it’s clear that the Tories can’t provide this.

“There will continue to be a huge cost to families because of the actions of this Tory Government.

“We are still flying blind with no OBR forecasts and no clarity of the impact of their mistakes.

“The humiliating climb-down on their energy plan begs the question yet again – why won’t they bring in a windfall tax on energy producers to help foot the bill?”

Asked about the credibility problem Ms Truss now faces after the mini-budget U-turns, her official spokesman said she was providing “stability of leadership”.

The spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is listening to the public.

“She is listening to advice on the markets, she is listening to her colleagues and she is making the necessary difficult decisions to change our approach so that we can provide the economic stability and indeed maintain that stability of leadership which is important.”

Pressed on whether she accepted she had a credibility problem, the spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is demonstrating that she is able to make the difficult decisions necessary to provide the leadership for this country.”