Jeremy Hunt has failed to rule out ditching more of Liz Truss's tax cuts as he prepares for a make-or-break financial statement on Halloween.
The new Chancellor said he was "not taking anything off the table" amid reports he's plotting to delay plans to cut a penny off the basic rate of income tax.
Mr Hunt, who was parachuted into No11 on Friday to replace crisis-hit Kwasi Kwarteng, is scrambling to prepare the October 31 financial statement which he said would be "a bit like a Budget ".
He warned of "difficult decisions" ahead and dangled the prospect of spending cuts for all departments but refused to give detail on tax plans.
The Chancellor, who is viewed by some as running the Government, insisted the PM was "in charge" despite being forced to junk most of her policy agenda.
Ms Truss's authority is in tatters following her disastrous mini-Budget, forcing her to sack her Chancellor and U-turn on a planned cut to corporation tax after just 38 days in office.
She has already been pushed into abandoning her decision to axe the 45p top rate of income tax by mutinous Tories, who are pushing for a further climbdowns on benefit cuts.
Ms Truss could also delay her plans to cut a penny off the basic rate of income tax, according to the Sunday Times.
Top Tory Robert Halfon said the PM should apologise for her economic plans which have left Brits "frightened" and accused his party of acting like "libertarian jihadists".
Angry MPs have been openly plotting to oust her in recent days, with rumours swirling of a "greybeard alliance" of grandees who want her gone.
Tories are trying to persuade Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to be their new leader and ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to return to the Treasury.
Mr Wallace is popular with grassroots Tories and was a favourite to succeed Boris Johnson but in July he decided not to run.
Asked at this month’s Birmingham party conference if he would consider running for leader, Mr Wallace said: “I don’t rule it out."
Ms Truss and her Chancellor are due to hold talks at the PM's Chequers retreat later as the Government scrambles to restore its economic credibility after days of chaos.
Mr Hunt told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Ms Truss remains "in charge" and insisted voters can still put their faith in her.
"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.
"What we're going to do is to show not just what we want but how we're going to get there."
Pressed on whether he'd abandon more of the PM's tax-cutting plans, he said: "I'm not taking anything off the table.
"I want to keep as many of those tax cuts as I possibly can because our long-term health depends on being a low-tax economy. And I very strongly believe that."
He joked that his own leadership ambitions had been "clinically excised" after two failed bids for No10 but his comments are unlikely to quell speculation he took the job with an eye to being a caretaker PM.
Treasury minister Andrew Griffith later dodged a question about whether Liz Truss will still be Prime Minister at Christmas.
He told TimesRadio: "I think Liz enjoys the confidence of the Government.
"She's the Prime Minister and the last thing that I think anybody wants is to see more instability."
It comes as former deputy Bank of England governor Sir Charles Bean branded the Government "disingenuous" for trying to suggest the market turmoil is "all a global phenomenon".
He told Sky News there is a "global element" to the UK's rise in interest rates and "three-quarters or two-thirds maybe is the world".
But he added: "The rest of that is a UK-specific phenomenon and it's developed since the mini-budget, so it's clearly driven by that in my view.
"We've moved from looking not too dissimilar from the US or Germany as a proposition to lend to, talking more like Italy or Greece."
Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the chaos was caused by the Government's own "incompetence".
He told the BBC : "I'm not even sure what this Government's economic policy is at the moment. I don't know which bits of the budget still apply, and I don't know what we will hear next week.
"What I would say is, any cuts the Conservative Party brings forward are entirely of its own making. Entirely because of its own incompetence."
