Like it or not, Trussonomics is what we look likely to get – so how do we make the most of it?

There are some glints of light ahead. Inflation will ease next year and maybe fall quite sharply, writes Hamish McRae

Liz Truss’s pitch is jam today, Rishi Sunak’s is jam tomorrow (PA/Reuters/The Independent)

Trussonomics – it has a strange ring about it, doesn’t it? Ever since Steven Levitt and Stephen J Dubner published Freakonomics back in 2005, the idea of adding “onomics” to a person’s name or an idea has become a useful shorthand for signalling some new way of looking at an economics issue. In this instance it is the probable next prime minister, Liz Truss, and her big idea that tax cuts are what are needed to boost the economy.

In a way it is very simple. The UK still has a huge fiscal deficit. But thanks to strong revenues and, with the exception of higher debt service charges, plus lower-than-expected spending, that deficit seems to be coming down faster than forecast. So you use that leeway to cut taxes by £30bn. That energises the economy and the faster growth that results brings in more tax and that helps in part at least to pay for the cuts.

In practice, this means cancelling the increases in National Insurance and the rise in corporation tax – both supported by Liz Truss’s rival Rishi Sunak. His response, oversimplified a bit, is there will be big cuts in income tax, but not until the deficit is down.