UK Prime Minister resigns after 45-day in office

Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister after just 45 days in office.

The announcement, made by Truss outside Downing Street, follows the near-complete evaporation of her political authority which has seen her crash the markets, lose two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs.

Speaking outside Downing Street, she says she has told King Charles she is resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.

The country had been held back by low economic growth for too long, she says, and she was elected by her party with a “mandate to change this”.

She says her government delivered on energy bills and cutting national insurance, and had set out a vision for a “low tax high growth economy”.

She adds: “I recognise… given the situation I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”

Liz Truss has been in office for just 45 days – the shortest tenure of any UK prime minister. The second shortest serving PM was George Canning, who served for 119 days before dying in 1827.

Trouble began when her first Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, spooked the financial markets with his mini-budget on 23 September, BBC reports.

Since then, Conservative disquiet has morphed into widespread anger within the parliamentary party.

Her stepping down today follows dramatic scenes in the House of Commons last night over a vote on fracking. Calls for her to go kept growing in the hours afterwards.