“The government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free-market experiments,” he told Sky News.

It’s not as if the party wasn’t warned. During the summertime contest to lead the Conservatives, Truss called herself a disruptor who would challenge economic “orthodoxy”. She promised she would cut taxes and slash red tape, and would spur Britain’s sluggish economy to grow.

Truss’ first days in office were overshadowed by a period of national mourning for the queen. Then on September 23, Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng announced the economic plan he and Truss had drawn up. It included £45 billion (US$50 billion) in tax cuts – including an income tax reduction for the highest earners – without an accompanying assessment of how the government would pay for them.

Truss was doing what she and allies said she would. Libertarian think-tank chief Mark Littlewood predicted during the summer there would be “fireworks” as the new prime minister pushed for economic reform at “absolutely breakneck speed”.

Still, the scale of the announcement took financial markets, and political experts, by surprise.

“Many of us, wrongly, expected her to pivot after she won the leadership contest in the way many presidents do after winning the primaries,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “But she didn’t do that. She actually meant what she said.”

The pound plunged to a record low against the US dollar and the cost of government borrowing soared. The Bank of England was forced to step in to buy government bonds and prevent the financial crisis from spreading to the wider economy. The central bank also warned that interest rates will have to rise even faster than expected to curb inflation that is running at around 10 per cent, leaving millions of homeowners facing big increases in mortgage payments.

Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, said Truss and Kwarteng made a series of “unforced errors” with their economic package.

“They shouldn’t have made their contempt for economic institutions quite so clear,” she said. “I think they could have listened to advice. And I think one of the things that they got very wrong was to announce one part of the package, the tax cuts … without the spending side of the equation.”

New UK finance minister Hunt tears up PM Truss’ agenda, warns of tax hikes

As the negative reaction grew, Truss began to abandon bits of the package in a bid to reassure her party and the markets. The tax cut for top earners was ditched in the middle of the Conservative Party’s annual conference in early October as the party rebelled.

It wasn’t enough. On Friday, Truss fired Kwarteng and replaced her long-time friend and ally with Jeremy Hunt, who served as health secretary and foreign secretary in the Conservative governments of David Cameron and Theresa May.

At a brief, downbeat news conference, the prime minister acknowledged that “parts of our mini budget went further and faster than markets were expecting”. She reversed a planned cut in corporation tax, another pillar of her economic plan, to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline”.

Truss is still prime minister in name, but power in government has shifted to Hunt, who has signalled he plans to rip up much of her remaining economic plan when he makes a medium-term budget statement on October 31. He has said tax increases and public spending cuts will be needed to restore the government’s fiscal credibility.

Still, Hunt insisted on Sunday: “The prime minister’s in charge.”

“She’s listened. She’s changed. She’s been willing to do that most difficult thing in politics, which is to change tack,” Hunt told the BBC.

The Conservative Party still commands a large majority in Parliament, and – in theory – has two years until a national election must be held. Polls suggest an election would be a wipeout for the Tories, with the Labour Party winning a big majority.

New UK finance minister warns of higher taxes in latest policy U-turn by PM

Now many of them have buyer’s remorse about his replacement. Under party rules, Truss is safe from a leadership challenge for a year, but some Conservative legislators believe she can be forced to resign if the party can agree on a successor. Defeated rival Sunak, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and popular Defence Secretary Ben Wallace are among the names being mentioned as potential replacements. Johnson, who remains a lawmaker, still has supporters, too.

Junior Treasury minister Andrew Griffith argued on Sunday that Truss should be given a chance to try to restore order.

“This is a time when we need stability,” he said. “People at home are just tearing their hair out at the level of uncertainty. What they want to see is a competent government getting on with (the) job.”