The moment of truth for Liz Truss is nearly upon her

Truss’s policies as prime minister will probably sound rather different from the small-state rhetoric of the past two months, writes John Rentoul

Liz Truss has got through the entire campaign without addressing the scale of the cost of living crisis (PA)

It has become clearer by the day through the Conservative leadership contest that, if Liz Truss won, her publicly avowed policies would have to be … adjusted. How successfully she makes that adjustment will, I think, determine whether or not she has a chance of surviving until the next general election.

Her only policy that has mattered during the campaign has been “tax cuts”. She hasn’t specified what form these will take, beyond saying that she would “reverse” the rise in national insurance contributions imposed by her opponent, Rishi Sunak. Except that he partially reversed the rise in July, tilting the benefit towards the low paid, so that a straightforward reversion to the position before April would make the low paid worse off and deliver big gains to top earners.

In any case, tax cuts alone cannot protect the poor from higher energy bills. Truss has said vaguely that she will do what she can to help people, but she has got through the entire campaign without addressing the scale of the problem. But on Tuesday at about 4pm, when she returns from seeing the Queen at Balmoral, she will have to speak to the nation in Downing Street before starting work as prime minister.