Just as Jeremy Hunt, our new ruler in all but name, was on the television explaining his plans for the country, journalists received a message from inside the Number 10 bunker. Slightly disappointingly, it didn’t actually say that the Prime Minister was healthy and hard at work but sadly unable to appear in public, but that was implied.

No sniggering at the back

“The PM held a political Cabinet call at 10 this morning,” it began. For no reasons that anyone needs to be concerned about, the not-in-any-way-under-house-arrest Liz Truss isn’t meeting ministers in person just now. But she does remain healthy and hard at work. “The PM reiterated that the government had taken immediate action to address the rising cost of living,” it continued, on the off-chance that the reason members of the Cabinet have been briefing against the Prime Minister is that they’re unaware of the government’s energy policy.

And then, it seems, the call got to the meat of the issue. “The Chancellor set out the worsening global economic situation with interest rates rising around the world as monetary policy returns to a sense of normality,” apparently.

If the Chancellor took time out to mention that interest rates had been rising rather more sharply in some countries than others, and indeed that some countries had recently been forced to sack their finance ministers, the message from the bunker didn’t say so. “Because of this, the government is adjusting its programme.”

Is that why, though? On our screens Hunt was setting out the scale of the adjustment. “Firstly, we will reverse almost all the tax measures announced,” he said. That was going to raise £32 billion. But there was more. The one single point of difference remaining between the government and Labour, a point on which Truss focused during Prime Minister’s Questions last week, was that Labour’s energy proposals only lasted six months, not the two years set out by the government. Would any readers like to guess how long the government’s plan now lasts? No sniggering at the back.

Last Wednesday, Truss had told Parliament that “absolutely” there would be no public spending cuts. On Monday morning, Hunt gave us an update: “Some areas of spending will need to be cut.” He had earlier told ministers he’d be seeing them all this week to give them details on that. Liz Truss remains healthy and hard at work.

The Prime Minister remains healthy and hard at work

It was for moments like this that journalists coined terms like “humiliating climbdown” and “screeching u-turn”, but now the time had come, none of these seemed adequate. It was the complete abandonment of everything that the Prime Minister stands for. The only substantial measure left from the mini-budget was the energy policy, one that Truss spent much of the summer resisting. It might actually have been less demeaning to march her down Whitehall in sackcloth and ashes shouting “shame”.

Hunt’s public statement, it is worth noting, didn’t include lines about this being the result of a “worsening global economic situation”. That kind of stuff won’t work on us. We’re not morons. Best to save it for the Cabinet.

Shortly after Hunt spoke, Tory MPs received a communication. “A message from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor”, it began. Perhaps it was intended as a proof of life, and it was plausible, in the sense that it seemed to have been drafted by someone who had lost touch with reality. “Global economic conditions are worsening and because of this we’ve had to adjust our programme,” it explained, deludedly. “When we get it wrong, we will say so,” it added, although they very much haven’t.

Does anyone believe these lines? Do they work on MPs? Ministers? Perhaps all we can say with confidence is that the Prime Minister remains healthy and hard at work, and will be appearing in public soon.