Liz Truss has just confirmed that she is U-turning on another part of her government’s not-so-mini Budget. After sacking her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng this morning, the Prime Minister used a Downing Street press conference to say that she will now keep the increase in corporation tax, despite promising to ditch it. This ought to raise £18 billion in tax.

Explaining her decision, Truss said that while she still stuck to her vision for the country of a pro-growth government, it had become clear that her government’s fiscal event – which saw a range of unfunded tax cuts announced – ‘went further and faster than the markets were expecting’.

As a result, she said, ‘I have decided to keep the increase in corporation task as agreed by the previous Government.’ Given reversing the corporation tax increase was a flagship policy of Truss’s leadership campaign, this is an incredibly embarrassing climbdown. It raises questions about the credibility of her government.

The argument Truss put forward in the conference was that her general message and campaign promises remained the same but she was having to change parts of it ‘to make sure we have economic stability’. Truss pointed to her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as a reliable and sensible figure who would help to restore fiscal credibility to her government.

The Q&A that followed her opening remarks was notably short, but that didn’t stop it from being painful. Truss was asked repeatedly why she should stay in position when her chancellor had been cast aside given the fiscal event was a joint venture. Truss declined from engaging directly with that question. She failed to explain why her Chancellor had to go given she still insists the government will go for growth. She also didn’t offer an apology when it came to recent events. Instead, she said repeatedly that she wanted to see out what she had ‘promised’. Whether she can – and whether her party will even let her try – remains to be seen. Tory MPs watching weren’t exactly reassured. ‘Nothing is better and she is just as broken,’ says a former minister. Several MPs say the conference actually made things worse – reminding them that the current leader’s communications skills are lacking. ‘It was extraordinarily bad,’ says one senior MP. The mood in the Tory party this afternoon is very jumpy indeed.