Events moved at pace in Westminster on Friday as Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor in a shock move while Jeremy Hunt was made his replacement and Liz Truss announced another U-turn in her mini-Budget.
While his appointment was welcomed by some Tory MPs as “an experienced pair of hands”, some questioned why Mr Kwarteng was the one who had to go when he was pursuing policies Ms Truss advocated for in her leadership campaign.
At a hastily arranged news conference in Downing Street, Ms Truss dismissed calls for her resignation, saying she is “absolutely determined to see through what I have promised”.
Who is the newly appointed chancellor?
Mr Hunt is a respected name in the Conservative party and has twice unsuccessfully tried to become the party leader. On his first attempt in 2019, he came closest, finishing second in the leadership race with Boris Johnson going on to win.
In the leadership race this year, he put his weight behind former chancellor Rishi Sunak over Liz Truss. That support came after he was eliminated from the contest himself early on, having failed to get enough votes to go any further.
The new chancellor has previously served as health secretary and foreign secretary after first being elected to parliament at the 2005 general election, taking over from Virginia Bottomley as the MP for South West Surrey.
Prior to his career in parliament, the 55-year-old worked as an English teacher in Japan and was an entrepreneur - co-founding the Hotcourses education publisher. When the business was sold in 2017, he netted a reported £14m, making him one of the UK's richest politicians. Mr Hunt said he would use the money to fund campaigns after he leaves politics.
Mr Hunt was brought up in the Surrey town of Godalming and attended Charterhouse School where he became head boy and excelled in cross-country running. He was also head of the school magic society where he said he learnt the “exacting art” which needs “confidence in presentation”.
At Oxford University, where he received a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics, he put his name out into the political sphere when he served as president of the Conservative Association.
In his first major role in government, from 2005 to 2007, he was the shadow minister for disabled people as a reward for supporting David Cameron - who attended Oxford University at the same time as him - in the Conservative leadership contest.
Mr Hunt met his wife Lucia Guo in 2008 at a Hotcourses event in Warwick, where she worked to recruit Chinese students to the university. The pair later married in 2009 and have three children together.
Their son Jack was born in 2010, with Anna following two years later. Their youngest child Eleanor was born in 2014.
It was revealed that Lucia's nickname for her husband is “Big Rice” because her Chinese grandmother struggled to pronounce “Jeremy” so she called him “Big Mi” meaning “Big Rice.”
When the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government was formed in 2010, Mr Hunt joined the cabinet as secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport.
The role projected him onto the main stage as London hosted the 2012 Olympics, during which time he worked closely with Mr Johnson, who was then Mayor of London.
However, in that same year, Me Hunt faced calls to resign over his role in the BSkyB takeover bid. The then-Labour leader Ed Miliband said Mr Hunt should quit over his contacts with Rupert Murdoch's media empire while he was considering the bid, which was later withdrawn. But he survived the row and in September 2012, was appointed health secretary.
Mr Hunt faced his first major backlash as a minister during his time as health secretary. He held office during a slow period of investment in the NHS which created problems at a time when demands on the health service were growing.
He also faced criticism over his handling of plans to introduce new contracts for junior doctors.
That prompted medics to take part in a series of walk-outs in 2016 - on two occasions, between 8am and 5pm, leaving emergency care uncovered - the first time that had happened in the history of the NHS. A new contract for junior doctors was later imposed.
But Mr Hunt did go on to secure a funding increase for the NHS and also oversaw the introduction of an Ofsted-style system for rating hospitals and GP surgeries in England.
During the 2016 EU referendum, Mr Hunt again sided with David Cameron as a Remainer, but afterwards said he would support Leave.
His long-running appointment as health secretary ended when he became foreign secretary in July 2018 after his predecessor Mr Johnson quit over Theresa May's Brexit strategy.
During his time as foreign secretary between 2018-19, Mr Hunt tried to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who had been held in Iran on spying charges, which she always denied.
After her release in 2022 with Liz Truss as foreign secretary, he accused the UK of “diplomatic failure” and said global co-operation was needed to “stamp out” states taking people hostage.
After losing to Mr Johnson in the 2019 leadership race, Mr Hunt said the campaign was “always going to be uphill” for him because he voted Remain in the 2016 EU referendum.
He was elected to head a committee of MPs which scrutinises the performance of the NHS and government health policy in January 2020. He led that committee in questioning former chief adviser to the PM, Dominic Cummings, over the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
In June this year, he revealed he had cancer but had since recovered. He said at the time that “every member of his family” has had the disease and that he had “a minor one” himself.
In his new role as chancellor, Mr Hunt has been labelled the “chief executive” to Liz Truss's "chair”.
Steve Brine, a Tory MP and ally of Mr Hunt who worked with him in the department of health, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that he is “very much” the man to steady the ship.
He called Mr Hunt “calm personified” and said that the Conservative Party now needs to unite.
Mr Brine said: “We have to. At the end of the day, everybody - detractor or otherwise - should want this government to succeed. And [what] I know about Jeremy [is] that he won't be licking his lips at the prospect of becoming chancellor at this time. But this is a moment to be there for the country, and in my experience, it's always been country first, and he will see that as his job right now.
“You should see Liz Truss as the chairman and Jeremy Hunt as the chief executive. And I think he'll be a very effective chief executive and like a new football manager coming in, at the end of the day the supporters are happy when the team is winning.”
