We’ve just witnessed the beginning of the end of Liz Truss’s premiership

The prime minister’s U-turn has saved her job until at least the end of the month, writes John Rentoul

The central promise of her leadership election campaign, to reverse Rishi Sunak’s tax rises, was abandoned (Getty)

An eight-minute press conference in which Liz Truss confirmed all the news that had already leaked from No 10 – but was unable to explain any of it – marked the beginning of the end of her premiership, just 38 days after it began.

We had known the U-turn was coming for days, but it was still shocking to hear her say the words: “I have therefore decided to keep the increase in corporation tax that was planned by the previous government.”

The central promise of her leadership election campaign, to reverse Rishi Sunak’s tax rises, abandoned. There was no explanation, only an excuse: that the global economic situation had developed not necessarily to her advantage, and that she and Kwasi Kwarteng were too forward-thinking for the markets, which hadn’t expected them to go so far, so fast. No acceptance of error; no apology; only a self-regarding statement of the obvious: “I want to be honest: this is difficult.”