I’ve never seen anything like this in 20 years of reporting on the economy

Jeremy Hunt’s announcement of the end of Trussonomics pleased the markets – but we will be feeling the effects of that disastrous mini-Budget for some time, writes James Moore

The statement from the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has provided a welcome boost for the battered pound (PA)

In ripping up Trussonomics, by reversing the vast majority of its unfunded tax cuts – and even promising extensive changes to the prime minister’s energy support package in six months – Jeremy Hunt has waved the white flag of surrender.

The markets have won, just as they did the last time a Tory government tried to take them on, which resulted in the UK’s ejection from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. That was followed by the Conservative Party’s ejection from Downing Street five years later.

But the devastation wrought on the British economy in recent weeks far eclipses even that miserable episode. Having reported on business and economics for more than two decades, I am still pinching myself. We have never seen anything like it. Is it even real? Is it actually happening? Or am I still in the coma I was left in after being run over by a cement truck (true story)? Nope. This is no fever dream. That truck has been driven over the economy this time.