JEREMY Hunt has inisted Liz Truss remains in charge in Downing Street despite him ripping up the economic prospectus on which she became Prime Minister.

The new Chancellor, who has been dubbed a de facto PM because Ms Truss is so weak, denied he had “any desire” to replace her, but didn’t quite rule it out.

He said "nothing was off the table" in relation to tax rises or spending cuts.

Mr Hunt was speaking on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

Ms Truss is this weekend in her country residence at Chequers, conferring with colleagues to see if she can stay in offic after a catastrophic week for her premiership.

After sacking then Chancellor Kwai Kwarteng for implementing the tax-cutting plan she wanted but which the financial markets balked at, she held a brief and counter-productive press conference which left many of her MPs more angry and despairing than before.

Senior Tories are now reported to be plotting how she can be removed from office within weeks or even days, anda new leader installed via a coronation, rather than leave the choice to the Tory party membership, which selected Ms Truss.

After Ms Truss appointed Mr Hunt as her second Chancellor - the UK’s fourth in four months - he swiftly upended her economic plans, warning spending would be cut, some taxes would go up, and there would be “very difficult” choices ahead for all government deparments.

On Wednesay, Ms Truss had said at PMQs that spending would “absolutely” not be cut.

Asking Mr Hunt about “ditching the entire thrust of what the Prime Minister wanted to do with the country”, presenter Laura Kuenssberg said today: “Who’s in charge? You or her?”

Mr Hunt replied: “The Prime Minister’s in charge.

“I think it's important when you talk about ditching things, the biggest element of that mini budget was the energy price guarantee, where people's bills were heading for £6,500.”

Ms Kuenssberg said: “But her promised tax cuts are now not happening. “She promised public spending would not be cut.

“You're now sayng very clearly for reasons you've explained that public spending might be cut.

“She has ditched central parts of her agenda. It's gone."

Mr Hunt said: “She has changed the way we're going to go now. She hasn't changed the destination, which is to get the country growing.

“I think she's right to recognise in the international situation, in the market situation, that change was necessary.

“But she is absolutely determined to deliver that economic growth that's going to bring more prosperity to ordinary families up and down the country.”

Ms Kuenssberg then raised the Tory plotting to get rid of Ms Truss. She said: “Some of your colleagues are saying to me, What is the point of Liz Truss as Prime Minister? The things that she stood for the things that she can campaigned on, have gone.

“And to be blunt about it. She's not there because of her rapport with the public.

“I mean, look at what's happened in the polls. Many of your colleagues think it's over, and that you are coming in as a real sort of last roll of the dice to try to help her out of something that is done.”

Mr Hunt replied: “What I would say to those colleagues is two things.

“The first is that when I talk to my constituents in South West Surrey, what they want is stability. And the worst thing for that would be more political instability at the top, another protracted leadership campaign.

“I think that's the last thing that people really want to happen.

“The second thing I'd say is that when it comes to a general election, when the public give their verdict on this government, they will judge us much more on what happens in the next 18 months than what's happened in the last 18 days.”

Asked if Ms Truss was a confident leader with a grip on the country, Mr Hunt said the PM had been “under extraordinary pressure” and hers was a very difficult job.

He said she was “absolutely determined to do the right thing”, even if that meant not always being popular, and she recognised “at some of the ways she's tried to do things in the last few weeks haven't worked as planned and she's willing to change”

He said: “She wants to get on with the job. And I think we should let her do that.“

Mr Hunt was runner-up to Boris Johnson in the Tory leadership of 2019, and was rapidly eliminated when he stood again in the summer.

Asked if he might stand for the Tory leadership again if Ms Truss leaves, he said: “I think having run two leadership campaigns and, by the way, failed in both of them, the desire to be leader has been clinically excised from me.

“I want to be a good Chancellor. It's going to be very, very difficult. But that's what I'm focusing on.”

Labour said recent weeks had been "a disgrace and an embarrassment to anyone who cares about this country and the people who live here".

Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “The damage has been done already.

"Whatever moves we see from the Conservative Party, whoever gets the chance of being Chancellor this month or whoever frankly is Prime Minster by next week – people’s mortgages are higher than they needed to be, business investment will be lower than it otherwise would’ve been, and Government expenditure and the pressures on that will be worse because of decisions that were made.”

He went on: “What this country needs is not conversations in Westminster, it needs a general election where the public will get their say on the future of government policy rather than it being decided anywhere else.”

He questioned who was in charge in Government, what the policies are and which bits of the mini-budget still apply, adding: “I genuinely don’t know the answers to those questions.”

He said “fresh ideas” were needed, adding: “I think that requires a Labour government. And I don’t see how the Conservative Party keeps believing it can change Chancellor or even leader without the public having their say.”