Where to start? It would be easy to focus on the circus of Truss’ resignation and the fiasco of yet another Tory leadership scramble. However, as I write, I don’t know who the Prime Minister will be when this column is published, risking being out-of-date as even more chaos unfolds.

So, instead, let’s think about the damage done in the real world by the last twelve years of Conservative government, culminating in the disastrous budgetary gamble taken by Truss and Kwarteng a month ago.

When the Tories came to power in 2010, we were told that austerity was the only way. Public services were slashed, something ordinary people have been bearing the brunt of ever since, as health and social care services crumble and poverty and food bank use rises. As someone on the doorstep recently commented: “If austerity worked, we’d be OK by now.”

Martin Wolf, chief economist at the Financial Times, observed in 2015 that “the people in charge of the UK economy are not sane”, because of their flawed adherence to austerity, which has resulted in the longest period of decreasing wages for 200 years.

Truss and Kwarteng’s “mini-budget” was supposed to provide a change of direction, an admission in itself of the failure of their own government’s policy over the last 12 years. Instead, they crashed the economy. The markets recognised the Tory lie that “if you lower taxes you get more money in” as an excuse for giving money to their rich friends and backers; consequently, market confidence fell.

Government spending comes from our taxes; we had to find £83-billion last year just to pay off debt interest, but will be paying over £100-billion a year now because of this self-inflicted crash, which is more than we spend on education annually. The average mortgage will also increase by £500 a month.

Top city trader Gary Stevenson commented: “We are watching a car crash of people’s lives.” And, unbelievably, the new Chancellor is now talking about further cuts to services to get us out of the hole that they dug us into.

As Labour leader Keir Starmer recognises, the damage the Tories have done will take years to fix. They should not be allowed to respond to the latest shambles by yet again shuffling the people at the top. The public deserves a chance to decide between more Tory chaos and Labour’s plans for real growth, which works for ordinary people and rebuilds the country, offering a fairer, greener future. We need a general election now.