Kwasi Kwarteng appeared from self-imposed exile yesterday to reveal that he warned Liz Truss that she was moving too fast with reform that she wanted to introduce in the immediate wake of her election as Conservative Party leader.

He said his policies tried to drive the economy forward and warned Rishi Sunak over the likely rise in taxes.

Kwarteng appears to have failed to grasp the severity of the situation facing the UK economy, and still has no answer to questions about how his plans were to be funded. The single lack of understanding came close to derailing the entire financial system, as pension funds came close to being forced to sell off longer-term assets which are the cornerstone of their portfolios.

It was a veiled criticism of Kwarteng's inexperience when Andrew Bailey spoke recently of how much harder it is to regain the market's confidence than lose it in the first place.

Jeremy Hunt will deliver his plans for repairing the hole in the UK's finances to Parliament next Thursday. Although he may provide a mixture of spending cuts and rises in taxation, it is believed that he plans a freeze on public spending, which the Opposition will challenge as a return to austerity.