How Prime Minister Liz Truss fell to humiliation in just 44 days

Here is a look back at her time in office and where it all went wrong.

September 5

Liz Truss is the victor in the Tory leadership contest and will become the country’s next prime minister. She promises a “bold plan” to cut taxes and grow the economy and “deliver on the energy crisis”.

September 6

Ms Truss becomes Prime Minister after being invited to form a new government by the Queen at Balmoral. Later that afternoon, in her first speech in Downing Street, she says she is honoured to take on the role “at a vital time for our country”. Kwasi Kwarteng is appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.

September 8

In Parliament shortly before midday, the PM announces a new energy price guarantee and promises support for businesses struggling with bills for six months, with targeted help for vulnerable firms beyond that. She describes it as “the moment to be bold”, adding: “We are facing a global energy crisis and there are no cost-free options.”

September 23

Kwasi Kwarteng (Image: PA)

Mr Kwarteng announces the biggest raft of tax cuts for half a century. Using more than £70 billion of increased borrowing, he sets out a package which includes abolishing the top rate of income tax for the highest earners and axing the cap on bankers’ bonuses while adding restrictions to the welfare system.

The pound falls to a fresh 37-year low as “spooked” traders swallow the cost of the spree.

October 3

In a dramatic U-turn, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng abandon their plan to abolish the 45p rate of income tax for top earners in England.

“We get it, and we have listened,” the Chancellor says, in language echoed in a tweet from the PM less than 24 hours after she said she remained absolutely committed to the cut.

October 14

Mr Kwarteng is sacked, having flown back early from International Monetary Fund talks in Washington. He says he has accepted Ms Truss’ request he “stand aside” as Chancellor.

The Prime Minister replaces her ideological soulmate at the Treasury with Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary who backed her rival Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest.

She announces she is abandoning Mr Kwarteng’s commitment to drop the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% – even though it was a central plank of her leadership campaign – saving the Exchequer £18 billion a year.

October 17

Mr Hunt ditches the bulk of the PM’s economic strategy in an emergency statement designed to calm the markets.

The Chancellor scales back the energy support package and scraps “almost all” the tax cuts announced by his predecessor.

Jeremy Hunt (Image: PA)

He abandons plans to slash the basic rate of income tax by 1p – which had been due to be brought forward to April – saying it will remain at 20p in the pound until the country can afford to reduce it.

The cut in dividend tax promised by Mr Kwarteng is also axed in the policy bonfire, along with VAT-free shopping for overseas tourists, the freeze on alcohol duty, and the easing of the IR35 rules for the self-employed.

Ms Truss sits silently in the Commons for roughly 30 minutes as her Chancellor informs MPs of the change of direction, staring straight ahead as he bins huge chunks of her plan.

October 19

The PM declares she is a “fighter, not a quitter” and insists she is “completely committed” to the triple lock on state pensions at PMQs.

Tory MPs are told a Labour vote in the Commons seeking to ban fracking is being treated as a “confidence motion” in Ms Truss’s embattled Government.

Deputy chief whip Craig Whittaker warns his colleagues the vote is a “100% hard” three-line whip, indicating that dozens of Conservatives who oppose the controversial gas extraction method face being kicked out of the parliamentary party if they do not follow orders in the lobbies.

But confusion ensues when climate minister Graham Stuart tells the Commons: “Quite clearly this is not a confidence vote.”

It leads to ugly scenes at Westminster, with Cabinet ministers Therese Coffey and Jacob Rees-Mogg among a group of senior Tories accused of pressuring colleagues to go into the “no” lobby.

Labour former minister Chris Bryant claims some MPs were “physically manhandled”.

Meanwhile, Suella Braverman dramatically quits as home secretary, citing a “technical infringement” of the ministerial rules, and criticising Ms Truss’s “tumultuous” premiership.

October 20

Liz Truss (Image: PA)

At 1.30pm, the Prime Minister steps out to the lectern and says she has told the King she is resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.

In a brief speech, she tells the country she recognises she “cannot deliver the mandate” which Tory members gave her a little over six weeks ago.

She says she will stay on as Prime Minister until a successor is chosen via a leadership election to be completed in the next week.