Since my column last week, it has become very clear that the mini-budget has become a maxi-disaster.

Liz Truss and her Chancellor are trying to make the government’s sums add up and it’s not going well.

The Tories’ abandoned 10-day experiment with tax cuts has cost £65 billion.  All at a time three million Britons need foodbanks.

This is a Tory Government completely out of touch, with no understanding on its own appalling record on growth.

The mini-budget has showed up their instincts for what they are: cut taxes for the wealthiest in society paid for by borrowing which, in the end, current and future taxpayers will have to pay for.

And it’s clueless as well.  Tax cuts to the wealthiest, but not to uprate benefits for the poorest in line with inflation while food prices soar, is truly shocking.  How was that ever supposed to work?

What the Chancellor called a little financial disturbance is a huge economic body-blow to working people that will mean higher prices and soaring mortgages.

This is an economic crisis made in Downing Street, paid for by working people.

The Tories have damaged the UK’s reputation on the global stage and left us all worse off. The fact the Bank of England had to step in with a £65 billion bailout with taxpayers’ money is deeply shameful.

That lack of credibility is pushing up borrowing costs for homeowners in Crawley, and that means mortgages are going up.

The BBC have reported the average mortgage payer faces a ‘Kwarteng Premium’ of £960 on their mortgage as a direct result of the shambolic mini-budget, which has seen rates rise by 1% higher than expected as markets lost faith in the British economy.

This is incompetence on a colossal scale – and they have damaged our country. The Conservatives must reverse their whole discredited trickle down strategy.

Otherwise when this fails, as it will, as the party of economic responsibility and social justice, it will come to the Labour Party to repair the damage this Tory government has done.

A general election really can’t come soon enough.

Cllr Michael Jones

Leader, Crawley Borough Council