The outgoing UK Prime Minister Liz Truss had a weak mandate from the beginning.
She was selected not by her fellow MPs but by an unidentified party membership from across the country.
The parliamentary party had favored her opponent, former finance minister Rishi Sunak, but she was preferred by the Conservative Party's tens of thousands of members.
READ MORE
What is the European Political Community?
Huawei 'disappointed' as UK steps up ban
China-UK Bridge Builders: James Trapp
During her campaign, she had promised tax cuts, which she attempted to deliver through her then finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng and his now infamous 'mini-budget.'
Liz Truss did not start her political career as a Conservative Party member.
She described her parents as "left-wing," and her mother, a nurse and a teacher, and her father, a math professor, took her on demonstrations against then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, now her political idol.
As a 19-year-old, she criticized the monarchy when she was a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats at the University of Oxford, She later described her conversion to conservatism as a "rebellion" spurred by a belief that people "should succeed on merit."
Truss joined the Conservative Party in 1996. Her dad refused to campaign for her when she was seeking election in 2010.
This file photo shows the former British Prime Minister Liz Truss at the annual Conservative Party conference, in Birmingham, Britain, on October 2, 2022. /Hannah McKay/Reuters
At the 2016 Brexit referendum, Truss backed Remain, saying "I don't want my daughters to grow up in a world where they need a visa or permit to work in Europe."
But Truss changed her mind and started to see Brexit as an opportunity to transform the UK economy.
As a senior government minister, she served under three prime ministers with roles in the ministries of the Environment, Treasury, Justice, International Trade.
She was appointed as the UK Foreign Secretary in September 2021 and a year later won the race to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister.
A shaky start
Her ambition and enthusiasm for self publicity marked her out from her colleagues but when she did win the top job, her leadership was immediately rocked by turmoil in the markets, emergency intervention by the Bank of England, dismay in her own party and the general public.
From the beginning of her term, the UK economic figures had indicated alarm at her plan of massive tax cuts, which had not been costed and the analysts said benefited the wealthy far more than the poorest.
The Bank of England rushed to ease market jitters by buying government debt as it threatened to spiral. The British pound devalued at an alarming rate against the dollar.
Truss's finance minister barely lasted a month in his new job before the debacle cost him his job, with the interior minister Suella Braverman following soon after. Liz Truss's doubters in the party surprised even themselves at how quickly they rallied to push back against both her policies and her tenure.
It proved to be an appointment that would be historic in both its brevity and its failure to grasp the expectations that come with high office.