A busted flush Truss discredited high-octane, freemarket economics, perhaps for ever

Boris Johnson's tenure had been short, but it had been consequential. At first glance, a similar verdict on Liz Truss's 50 days in office seems improbable.

- Jonathan Freedland

There is no record of positive achievement. Her accomplishment was to have smashed up so much so quickly. But there are other reasons to consider her tenure to be of the greatest consequence.

Truss may well have killed off an ideological project that has animated sections of the right, in Britain and elsewhere, for the best part of half a century. The vision was of a low-tax, low-regulation society where the richest are freed to unleash their awesome talents and make themselves even richer.

According to this vision whether you call it Hayekism, ultra-Thatcherism, Reaganism or economic libertarianism - when the fortunate few at the top soar, some of their wealth trickles down to those at the bottom.

Now, such dreams will be branded as Trussonomics - and that label will be the kiss of death. She has discredited high-octane, free-market economics, perhaps for ever. She tried it, undiluted, as her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, delivered a mini-budget on 23 September.

Trussonomics removed the cap on bankers' bonuses and slashed the taxes of the wealthiest, handing an average £10,000 ($11,300) to the highest-earning 600,000 people in the country: literally the 1%. It also reversed a planned rise in corporation tax. And it did all that in the name of unleashing the animal spirits of the free market to create "growth".