To even consider sketching this year’s Conservative conference is to find oneself overwhelmed by the task. You feel as Lady Elizabeth Butler must have as she set up her easel on the edge of the Waterloo battlefield, wondering whether there would be any interesting action on the cavalry front, or as Alfred Lord Tennyson may have as he sat on the hill at Balaclava, chewing his pencil and trying to think of a rhyme for “hundred”. With so much sheer human misery and pointless destruction on display, how can anyone hope to do it justice? Where to even begin?

I was woken by the sound of a large vehicle precariously reversing beneath my window. It turned out not to be alone. On the radio, Kwasi Kwarteng was explaining that it had been explained to him that he was a Listening Chancellor in a Learning Government, and that he now accepted that cutting taxes for the rich, while in general a good thing to do, was, at this point, a bad idea.

He’s already having to explain why he’s not resigning

The U-turn on the top rate of tax was a surprise only in the sense that the government had seemed so determined to ignore reality that we had assumed they would have to be wrestled to the ground by their backbenchers. At conference parties on Sunday evening, the mood was between gallows humour and despair. People have stayed away. You can get served at the bar. Events that are usually hot tickets were pleasantly uncrowded. When they turned up the lights at the ConservativeHome party at midnight, there was still champagne undrunk. This has not, in previous years, been a problem.

Some MPs, of course, are putting a brave face on it. Here we must mention Michael Gove who, in spite of Liz Truss’s difficulties, is somehow managing to dash from fringe event to fringe event, forcing his features into a broad smile and greeting everyone with a cheerfulness that hides the pain he must surely be feeling inside.

It must have been especially not-enjoyable for Gove to listen to the two-hour mauling that was Kwarteng’s tour of the broadcast studios on Monday morning. He’s been Chancellor of the Exchequer less than a month and he’s already having to explain why he’s not resigning.

He did not grasp it

But if Kwarteng’s interviews left you tempted to dive back under the covers, Liz Truss’s Monday interview round somehow managed to surpass them. For logistical reasons, the prime minister had recorded her chats with regional broadcasters on Sunday afternoon, before the U-turn. They were not, however, broadcast until the following afternoon. This isn’t usually a problem, but we now had the surreal spectacle of watching her stoutly defend a policy she’d dumped by the time the appearances were broadcast. I’ve seen prime ministers taunt opponents, but this may be the first case of a politician using a set of interviews to mock her future self.

But on Monday afternoon, Kwarteng had the chance to take the agenda back with his big speech. The chancellor, the second most powerful politician in Britain, was going to set out his stall for the nation. The queue to hear it began an hour before he was due to start. This was his moment.

He did not grasp it. “What a day!” he began. “It has been tough, but we need to focus on the job in hand. We need to move forward. No more distractions.” This wasn’t great oratory. It wasn’t even terrible oratory. It was like listening to a humiliated middle manager telling a sales conference there was to be no more discussion of his antics in the bar the night before. His forehead was already glistening with beads of sweat.

His theme was, well, no one seems quite sure. Britain is great, which is nice, and we can do anything we set our minds to, but our businesses have been horribly let down. He knew about this, because, as he pointed out, he was Business Secretary for two years, personally letting down employers up and down the country.

Kwarteng wanted us to know that he believes in growth. He seemed to think that this was a novel idea, which suggests he hasn’t read many of his predecessors’ speeches. Though to be fair his delivery left the distinct impression that this was the first time he’d seen his own speech.

The audience didn’t really know what to make of it. The applause was sporadic and half-hearted. The chancellor got cheers for an attack on Brussels, but if you can’t get applause for that at a Tory conference, you should give up.

If Truss’s interviews had taken 24 hours to undermine her, Kwarteng was doing it in real time. We used to wonder if Boris Johnson’s speechwriters had a running competition to see who could get him to utter the most self-parodic line. They now seem to have gone to work for Kwarteng. If so, they’ll struggle to beat his comment that he had an “ironclad commitment to fiscal discipline”.

Much of the last week has felt like a Kwarteng anxiety dream

Whatever you thought of Gordon Brown and George Osborne, they knew that their conference speech was their moment in the spotlight, and they took it seriously, preparing for months. Kwarteng hasn’t had months, but he has had weeks. This speech read like it had taken minutes. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t rise to the occasion as that he didn’t seem to have realised that there was an occasion to rise to. Etonians like Kwarteng are supposed to display effortless superiority, but it’s important to remember that you are still supposed to secretly put some effort in.

On stage, his forehead was drenched. Much of the last week has felt like a Kwarteng anxiety dream: you deliver a budget that crashes the pound, the Bank of England has to bail out the economy, you have to go through a humiliating climbdown live on TV, and then you realise you have to give a speech to the nation but you haven’t written it, and you have absolutely nothing to say.

It was a pitiful sight to see him falling apart before our eyes. Perhaps in future decades a painter or poet will do it justice. Floreat Etona? Or perhaps The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade?