What if the fiasco of the 2022 mini budget was just a rehearsal for something much bigger? It is now costing the British government well over £100 billion a year just to pay the interest on its borrowings – more than it spends on either education or defence and around two thirds of what it spends on health. The government is running a deficit of £150 billion this year – a sum which will be added to the national debt and will require even ore to be spent on debt interest in coming years.

Ross Clark argues that a fiscal crisis will profoundly change the political landscape in Britain. Ideas which might seem unpopular now – such as a small and efficient state – will have to be enacted then. The political prize will fall to whoever, or whichever party, can prepare itself for the coming disaster.