British PM Liz Truss fires finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng

British Prime Minister Liz Truss makes a press statement on October 6 in Prague.

120 days.?

That’s how long Liz Truss must last in her job to avoid claiming the most unenviable record in politics: the shortest prime ministerial term ever, currently held by George Canning.?

She’s less than a third of the way to the mark, and her premiership is already on the ropes. Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor on Friday, and ditched another key plank of her fiscal plan, but attempted to stand firm on her economic vision in an eight-minute news conference.

But it seems Friday has merely accelerated another political crisis that has engulfed Downing Street and emboldened Truss’s critics.

Many in her own party are nervously searching for an exit route, some openly critical of her and others noticeably silent as she fights to save her job.?

The Labour Party, enjoying a polling lead it could hardly have dreamed of one year ago, is twisting the knife, calling for a general election as the Tories hemorrhage public support.

And the all-important markets are hardly jumping for joy, with Truss’s news conference doing little to ease investors’ fears.

The names of Truss’s possible successors are being thrown around Westminster already. Britain already has its fourth finance minister in four months; the question now is whether its fifth prime minister in six years is on their way too.

Newly appointed UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt will deliver the government’s medium-term fiscal plan on Oct. 31, the UK government confirmed in a statement on Friday.

Hunt was appointed as the new finance minister earlier on Friday after Prime Minister Liz Truss asked Kwasi Kwarteng to “stand aside.”?

The government had already been forced to bring forward the statement to Oct 31, more than three weeks earlier than initially planned.

The plan will be published alongside a full forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the statement said.

Also on Friday, Truss announced she will retain plans to increase corporation tax – plans that she had previously said would be scrapped.

The Bank of England confirmed that it ended its emergency UK government bond-buying plan on Friday as planned.

The bank on Friday bought just over 1.45 billion pounds of UK government debt, bringing the total amount of spending to 19.3 billion pounds, it said in a statement.

When the bank launched the scheme in September, it said it was willing to spend up to 65 billion pounds — around 5 billion pounds a day — to support the market.

The Bank of England was forced to announce the emergency plan after the UK government’s mini-budget sparked market turmoil.?The pound and UK government bonds crashed, forcing some pension funds near default and pushing them to dump assets as a hedging strategy came unstuck. Mortgage rates also shot higher.

Newly appointed UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt arrives at Downing Street in London on October 14.

Newly appointed UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt has arrived at No. 10 Downing Street, according to a CNN team outside the prime minister’s office.?

Hunt was appointed as the new UK finance minister earlier Friday after Prime Minister Liz Truss asked Kwasi Kwarteng?to stand aside from the position.

Philip Hammond arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street on July 12, 2016 in London, England.

The British Conservative Party’s economic reputation and growth agenda has been left in “tatters,” former UK Chancellor Philip Hammond said Friday.

Hammond made the remarks in an interview on BBC Radio 4.

“[Truss’ government] haven’t fully resolved the economic question, and I do not think they can resolve the political damage that has been caused,” Hammond said.

“I’m afraid to say we’ve thrown away years and years of painstaking work to build and maintain a reputation as a party of fiscal discipline and competence in government. And many of the arguments that we routinely deploy against the labour party around fiscal management will look extremely limp in light of what has happened over the last few weeks,” he added.

Hammond’s comments come as the UK faces significant economic turmoil. He spoke before Truss gave a news conference at Downing Street where she formally announced a major U-turn on corporation tax.

Hammond criticized Truss’ economic policy on growth and said she “will have to go back to a more conventional economic policy.”?

“Liz Truss’ economic agenda was very simple: you cut taxes, and growth comes automatically. That approach, which means using borrowing to fund the cost of tax cuts until the growth kicks in, if it ever does, is now off the agenda,” he said.?

Hammond does think Truss can survive as prime minister and did not call for her to resign.??“I do not believe the country will tolerate another change of leader without a general election,” he said.

What Truss is saying: In firing finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng and announcing another reversal on her mini-budget, Truss acknowledged the difficulty of her task Friday but said she “acted decisively” to calm the markets.

Truss says Jeremy Hunt, her new chancellor, is “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians.”

Facing fierce criticism, she declined to apologize to her party or the public over the instability her economic plan caused.

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss fired her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng and ditched a central plank of economic policy Friday, just three weeks after their discredited growth plan crashed the value of the pound and UK government bonds, and drew rebukes from the International Monetary Fund and ratings agencies.

The crash forced the Bank of England to intervene to prevent a market meltdown with an emergency ￡65 billion program of bond-buying and new facilities to help banks and pension funds secure cash.

That bond-buying is supposed to end on Friday, but the former chief economist of the IMF, Raghuram Rajan, says Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey will need to proceed very cautiously.

“The primary role of central banks is to provide liquidity, I don’t think he has a choice. He cannot let the market for gilts collapse,” he told CNN.

Bailey made clear earlier this week that the support would end Friday. Rajan said that would be difficult because investors have gotten used to central banks pumping trillions into markets in recent years.

“Of course, he wants to withdraw. The problem is the amount of liquidity they’ve supplied in the past makes it very tough for him to withdraw quickly. He has to withdraw slowly. It is hard to fix a final date … It is a tough situation, but he has to muddle through,” Rajan said.

Britain's Labour Party leader Keir?Starmer?speaks during the first Prime Minister's Questions with new Prime Minister Liz Truss at the House of Commons in London, England, on September 7.

Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, has condemned Liz Truss’s “reckless approach” to the economy.

“Changing the Chancellor doesn’t undo the damage made in Downing Street,” Starmer wrote.

“We need a change in government,” Starmer added. “With my leadership, Labour will secure Britain’s economy and get us out of this mess.”

Starmer’s Labour Party is enjoying a monumental lead over the Conservatives in opinion polls, leading many Tories to fear for their jobs and prompting speculation that the party will move to oust their new leader.

UK government bonds and the British pound rallied in recent days, as investors cheered reports that Prime Minister Liz Truss would roll back more of her much-criticized economic program.

On Friday, Truss made it official, scrapping plans to reverse a rise in business taxes.

But the market wasn’t satisfied. The price of 30-year UK debt, which had been gaining ground, fell slightly after the press conference. The British pound was down 1.3% against the US dollar, trading below $1.12.

The U-turn on corporate taxes will save ￡18 billion ($20 billion), easing some investor concerns about the UK government’s growing debt load. But traders are still desperate for more information, as confusion reigns about what policies are still in play.

Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss holds a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room on October 14, in London, England.

Liz Truss’s eight-minute press conference has done little to shift the narrative that she is losing control of the Conservative Party, the public and Britain’s economy.

Truss was criticized by reporters for taking just four questions before rapidly leaving the podium.

“Aren’t you going to apologize,” a reporter called out as she left the room.

“We were genuinely shocked” at the lack of questions Truss took, Sky News Political Editor Beth Rigby said on the channel after the news conference ended.

Tory lawmakers were notably quiet on social media after the news conference finished, but Truss was roundly attacked by opposition MPs.

“None of this is fair on our country and the people whose lives and livelihoods are hanging in the balance because of this shambles of a government,” Labour’s shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said after Truss’s press conference wrapped up.

“Changing the Chancellor doesn’t undo the damage that’s been done,” his colleague, the shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, added earlier. “We don’t just need a change in Chancellor, we need a change in government.

“This is a Tory crisis, made in Downing Street,” Reeves said.

Liz Truss, UK prime minister, attends a news conference on the UK economy at Downing Street in London, UK, on October 14.

Liz Truss ended a very brief news conference at Downing Street in which she defended her economic vision but declined to apologize to her party or the public over the instability her mini-budget caused.

“We recognise because of current market issues we have to deliver the mission in a different way,” Truss said. “And that’s what we are absolutely committed to do.”

Asked whether she would say sorry to her party’s lawmakers, some of whom are publicly trashing her economic agenda, she replied: “I?am determined to deliver on what I set out when I campaigned to be party leader. We need to have a high-growth economy but we have to recognize that we are facing very difficult issues as a country.”

Truss said Jeremy Hunt, her new Chancellor, is “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians.”

Kwasi Kwarteng, whom Truss fired earlier Friday, presented the “mini-budget” just three weeks ago, promising huge tax cuts and increased borrowing with the hope of boosting UK economic growth. But the pound and government bonds crashed on fears that the plans would?further juice inflation?at a time when prices are already rising at their fastest rate in about 40 years.

That drove up mortgage rates and other borrowing costs, while the?Bank of England?warned of a serious risk to UK financial stability and announced?three separate interventions?to calm a bond market meltdown that put some UK pension funds on the brink of default.

Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss attends a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in central London on October 14.

“I want to be honest: this is difficult,” Liz Truss told reporters after sacking her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng amid market turmoil.

“But we will get through this storm,” Truss added, saying she will stick with her plan to boost growth.

Truss said she “acted decisively” to calm the markets, but she has already announced another U-turn from her mini-budget.

Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss holds a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in central London on October 14.

Liz Truss has told the media she was “incredibly sorry” to fire the Chancellor, and admitted her fiscal plan backfired.

“It is clear that parts of our mini budget went further and faster than the markets were expecting,” Truss said.

“We need to act now to reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline,” she added.

Truss originally wanted to scrap a rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% that had been planned by a previous chancellor, Rishi Sunak, saying it would hinder growth. Now she says she will keep the tax at its current rate – a reversal of another key part of her economic policy.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng (second left) arrives at London Heathrow Airport on October 14, 2022.

Liz Truss has made the toughest decision of her political career and sacked her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, just weeks after he was appointed to the role.

A senior government official explained to CNN that speculation of the Kwarteng’s future, following the economic fallout from his now-infamous mini-budget three weeks ago, had become a political distraction that didn’t help the country move on.

Whether or not that turns out to be the case remains to be seen.

Kwarteng was much more than a colleague to Truss. The two had become the darlings of the low-tax, free-market Conservative right who saw the resignation of Boris Johnson as a chance to finally install the libertarian, de-regulating government of their dreams.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, and Prime Minister Liz Truss during the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, England, on October 2.

The government’s tax-cutting mini-budget was as much Truss’s as it was Kwarteng’s. By throwing him under a bus in order to save her premiership, she has also ditched the very economic plan that got her elected as Conservative leader a little over one month ago.

Abandoning her agenda and sacking her ideological ally could lead to Conservative MPs and voters alike wondering: exactly what is the point of Truss?

And Kwarteng, humiliated by one of the biggest rejections from the very free markets he wanted to embrace, is as well-placed as any former cabinet minister now sat on the backbenches, should he want to exact any sort of revenge on the Prime Minister.

Liz Truss has appointed Edward Argar as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after firing Chris Philp alongside his boss, Kwasi Kwarteng, on Friday.

Argar becomes the number two in the Treasury as Truss installs a new team she hopes will rescue the UK from market turmoil and stabilize her premiership.

MP Jeremy Hunt attends the Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 7, in Cheltenham, England.

Jeremy Hunt, a veteran of previous Conservative governments and a supporter of Liz Truss’s opponent during the summer leadership contest, will be Britain’s new chancellor.

Hunt becomes the UK’s fourth finance minister in as many months, after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked Friday 38 days into the post amid the economic fallout over his mini-budget.

Hunt, who has previously served as foreign secretary and health secretary, backed Rishi Sunak after his own bid for the Tory leadership failed.?

Liz Truss will face the media at a news conference at 2:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET), Downing Street has confirmed, after she fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her Chancellor.

Former Bank of England Deputy Governor Charlie Bean said the firing of finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng was “probably a necessary step, but it’s not sufficient.”

“This is important [given] the politics, but it doesn’t solve the economic question,” Bean told CNN.

Prime Minister Liz Truss must now unveil a new economic package that credibly includes a plan to tackle government debt over the next three to five years, he continued.

Otherwise, the British pound and UK government bonds could experience another selloff. “What the markets want to see is a coherent picture, how it all fits together,” Bean said.

“In the absence of that, you’re going to see sterling and gilts coming under pressure again.” The pound and bonds have regained ground in recent days in anticipation of a government U-turn.

But they remain extremely volatile. Bean said the next finance minister must have “wider support across the Conservative Party, and ideally have some credibility in the parliament and the country more generally.”

Britain's dismissed Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng walks out of Number 11 Downing Street, London, on October 14.

Kwasi Kwarteng has published his letter to Liz Truss after she fired him as Chancellor on Friday.

“You have asked me to stand aside as your Chancellor. I have accepted,” Kwarteng wrote.

He goes on to defend his widely condemned mini-budget, which created the outrage that ultimately cost him his job.

“As I have said many times in the past weeks, following the status quo was simply not an option,” Kwarteng wrote. He said he would support Truss in advancing the plan from the backbenches – but it remains to be seen whether the Prime Minister will look to salvage any of the politically radioactive agenda they both once espoused.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng delivers a speech on day two of the annual Conservative Party conference on October 3, in Birmingham, England.

British?finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng was fired Friday, which means he was only in the job for 38 days, making him the second shortest-serving UK chancellor on record.

Iain Macleod, who died 30 days after taking the job in 1970, is the shortest-serving UK chancellor.?

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng is interviewed during the morning media rounds during the annual Conservative Party conference on October 3, in Birmingham, England.

Kwasi Kwarteng’s first flagship economic policy will also be his last.

It’s a fairly remarkable feat for a government policy to be so catastrophic, but Kwarteng’s dismissal as chancellor – confirmed by Downing Street to CNN in the last few minutes – encapsulates how deeply unpopular and disruptive his “mini-budget” was.

The plan, presented by Kwarteng on September 23, promised huge tax cuts and increased borrowing. It quickly plunged the value of the pound and government bonds over fears that it would?further juice inflation?at a time when prices are already rising at their fastest rate in about 40 years.

That prompted the?Bank of England?to warn of a serious risk to UK financial stability and announce?three separate interventions?to calm a bond market meltdown that put some UK pension funds on the brink of default.

Kwarteng’s plan included a plan to scrap the highest rate of income tax to 40% from 45%, which was later abandoned after public anger.?A removal of the cap on bankers’ bonuses also deep fury amid a cost-of-living crisis hitting British families.

The sweeping tax cuts and their impact on markets left the Bank of England struggling to contain a crisis.

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, meanwhile, downgraded the outlooks on their UK government credit ratings from “stable” to “negative” on concerns over the growing debt burden.

The pound has recovered all its losses but UK government bond yields remain higher than they were before the crash.

Investors are cheering reports that Prime Minister Liz Truss will reverse key parts of her economic plan?and fire Treasury Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. They’re snapping up UK government bonds, which have been hit hard in recent weeks.

Bryn Jones, head of fixed income at Rathbones, said his team recently bought some longer-term UK government debt — known as gilts — when prices looked cheap. That bet is now paying off. But he warned that the bond market’s huge moves — both up and down — reveal that it’s still not functioning properly.

“The gilt market is doing okay, but we’ll see what happens later today and next week. Things can change quickly,” Jones said. “The volatility tends to suggest there isn’t a huge amount of confidence here.”

Like the rest of the public, investors are waiting to see what the government will say later Friday. Yet for now, they’re celebrating rumors that Truss will change course after her initial plans to slash taxes while boosting borrowing triggered unprecedented market turmoil.

Jones pointed to a?classic quote?from American political strategist James Carville: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now, I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

Jones added: “That’s basically what the bond market has done. It’s intimidated the government.”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng speaks during the Government's Growth Plan statement at the House of Commons, in London, England, on September 23.

Kwasi Kwarteng was fired as Britain’s chancellor on Friday morning, a senior source inside Downing Street has confirmed to CNN, after it had been determined that speculation over his political future had become a distraction that was not in the country’s interest.

Kwarteng has been fired just weeks into the job, after he and Prime Minister Liz Truss unveiled a disastrous financial plan that tanked UK markets and alarmed global financial agencies.

The move means Truss has ousted one of her closest allies and admitted defeat on the economic vision she touted throughout the summer and in the first weeks of her premiership, after she succeeded Boris Johnson.

Kwarteng was seen as a darling of the Conservative Party’s economic right wing, and he has defended his agenda as the only way to boost Britain’s economy in the long term.

Britain will soon have its fourth chancellor in as many months. But it remains to be seen how much of Kwarteng’s plan Truss will attempt to salvage, and whether the dismissal is enough to save her own premiership.

Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons in London, Engalnd, on October 12.

Spare a thought for British Conservative members of parliament.?

The governing party of the United Kingdom thought they had it bad with scandal-stricken Boris Johnson wrecking their poll numbers and turning what was once called the natural party of government into an exploding clown car.?

But having spent an enormous amount of energy removing a reluctant Johnson from office this summer, exhausted MPs say his replacement, Liz?Truss?– just 37 days into the job – seems hellbent on making the bad situation worse.?

After her mini-budget – which proposed unfunded tax cuts, huge government borrowing and let energy companies off from a windfall tax – sent the pound tumbling and caused all manner of wider economic chaos, they are faced with the grim reality of having a leader they deem to be more damaging than Johnson but will be even harder to replace.?

“Even if you think she’s awful, we can’t replace her this soon,” a former cabinet minister and?Truss?supporter tells CNN. “I am not optimistic about the future, but we need to try and ride this out and learn from the mistakes.”?

The mistakes in question were, most MPs agree, terrible communications from the government and trying to do too many things too fast, without being adequately funded.

“They committed to huge spending, rightly, to help people with energy bills, then immediately started talking about tax cuts,” a senior Conservative says. As a result, they are not “even getting credit for spending a load of money. When you announce policy like this you have to roll the pitch like mad. Why didn’t they roll the pitch?”?

Truss may be forced into a U-turn on Friday and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, is battling to save his job.

Read more about the dire mood in the Conservative Party here.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A British prime minister is fighting to save their job after public fury and mutiny on the back benches plunged Downing Street deep into a political crisis of its own making.?

Even by the standards of the tumultuous past decade in Westminster, Liz Truss’s lightning-fast fall into turmoil may take some beating.?

Just five weeks ago Truss was making her first speech as leader, triumphantly pitching a bold economic agenda that she claimed would put Britain on the path to growth. But that plan has instead tanked UK markets and alarmed global financial agencies, sinking public confidence in Truss’s government with it.

Truss will deliver an emergency press conference on Friday, a spokesperson for Downing Street told CNN, as she seeks to save her derailed premiership. Her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, flew back early from a summit in Washington DC as he fights for his job.

Follow live updates here throughout the day.