• Some Tory backbenchers have been talking privately about how to remove the PM, after market turmoil led her to abandon her flagship tax policies.
• A key test of the government's moves so far will come when markets reopen early on Monday,
Image: BBC
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has insisted Liz Truss is still in charge of the government, after a series of U-turns left her premiership in jeopardy.
Some Tory backbenchers have been talking privately about how to remove the PM, after market turmoil led her to abandon her flagship tax policies.
Mr Hunt urged the party to unite behind her, as the pair held crunch talks to thrash out plans on tax and spending.
But a senior Tory MP said "the game is up" and called for Ms Truss to go.
Mr Hunt replaced Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, after the former chancellor was fired following financial turbulence in the wake of last month's mini-budget and a backlash from a number of MPs in his party.
A key test of the government's moves so far will come when markets reopen early on Monday, with ministers facing a nervous wait to see if the rise in UK government debt costs over recent weeks continues.
- Chancellor warns of tax rises and cuts on spending
- Bank of England chief warns of interest rate hike
- Who is in charge? Liz Truss or Jeremy Hunt?
Measures already jettisoned from the £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts announced last month include scrapping the top income tax rate, and a freeze in corporation tax.
Despite overseeing a dramatic change in Ms Truss's flagship policy, Mr Hunt insisted that "the prime minister's in charge"and denied media speculation that he has become the most powerful member of government.
"She's listened. She's changed. She's been willing to do that most difficult thing in politics, which is to change tack," he said in an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg.
Mr Hunt also ruled himself out of any future leadership contest, saying his desire to lead the party had been "clinically excised" after two previous failed attempts.
Instead, he urged Conservative MPs to come together and back Ms Truss, noting that the "worst thing would be another protracted leadership campaign".
However, some Tory MPs have reportedly opened talks about how to remove her from power, despite current party rules preventing a formal leadership challenge for a year.
Tactics reportedly under consideration include submitting no-confidence letters in a bid to force party bosses into a rule change, or changing the rules to allow MPs to bypass party members and pick a new leader themselves.
The former minister Crispin Blunt became the first Conservative MP to publicly call for the prime minister to resign, telling Channel 4 that "the game is up and it's now a question as to how the succession is managed".
"If there is such a weight of opinion in the parliamentary party that we have to have a change then it will be effected."
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged the prime minister to reshuffle the cabinet to extend her support across the party.
He told the BBC: "There's a huge amount of talent on the backbenches - I'm not talking about me, but there are many others that should be brought into government."
Meanwhile, senior backbencher Robert Halfon told Sky News that MPs across the party "are unhappy with what is going on", adding that "we're all talking to see what can be done about it".
He said he was not calling on Ms Truss to go, but called for a "dramatic reset" in the government's direction.
And in a blistering attack, he accused ministers of behaving like "libertarian jihadists" treating the public as "laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free market experiments".
However Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who sits on the committee that decides the rules, told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House that removing Ms Truss would be a "very serious event".
He said it would be possible to change the rules but doing so would require the support of a "large majority" of Conservative MPs - "probably sixty to seventy percent".
Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, a key ally of former leader Boris Johnson, warned "serial back-stabbers" against trying to depose Ms Truss.
"Our core supporters will not vote for a feuding party that throws its leaders overboard in every storm," she wrote in the Sunday Express. "She has had a rough start but we must give her the chance to put things right".