COMPETENCE, confidence and credibility are all essential elements, which a government must possess to be successful but, at present, the Conservative administration lacks all three.

The post-Budget turmoil is happening just as the Tory family nervously prepares to meet in Birmingham. Compared to the Labour conference, which had the atmosphere of a wedding, the Conservative gathering could feel more like a funeral.

Making a major Budget statement without explaining the associated costs or the future consequences via a detailed OBR analysis was essential for market confidence. How Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng failed not to appreciate this is sheer incompetence.

Consequently, the markets took fright and confidence in the UK Government’s growth plan plummeted. Investors decided if the Treasury wanted their money to pay for tax cuts, then the interest rate would go up considerably; thus creating a nightmarish prospect for millions of mortgage-holders across the country of soaring bills on top of high inflation elsewhere.

Another consequence of the Chancellor’s big blunder was that the market turmoil had forced pension funds, which manage savings for millions of Britons, to sell Government bonds to head off fears over their own solvency.

The disruption was threatening to see them suffer severe losses and was creating a downward spiral in gilt prices as more Government bonds were quickly offloaded. So, the Bank of England, fearing a “material risk to UK financial stability,” stepped in to launch an emergency £65bn bond-buying intervention – with our money – at an “urgent pace,” to prevent borrowing costs from spiralling out of control.

It felt like a panic move but a necessary one. The swift action helped trim yields on gilts and created some much-needed calm to the bond market. The pound recovered slightly but is still hovering nervously around $1.08.

Keir Starmer, basking in the afterglow of his buoyant conference by the Mersey, accused Truss & Co of having “lost control of the economy” and demanded a Westminster recall. He urged the PM to abandon her Budget measures “before any more damage is done”. Good luck with that one.

Amid all of this week’s turmoil and the consequent anxiety caused to households up and down the land about their finances, what is truly shameful is the PM and her Chancellor spent days cocooned in their Downing St bunkers not once having the courage to make a public appearance to try to calm the raging political and economic storm.

Yesterday, the Norfolk submarine finally resurfaced. In a series of media interviews, she tried her best to keep the focus on the universally-backed help for people’s energy bills and steer clear of answering any uncomfortable questions about the self-inflicted market turmoil.

Truss resorted to robotic answers but, at times under questioning, was simply lost for words.

BBC Radio Stoke’s presenter pointed out how homeowners’ mortgages fees were rising by more than the amount they would save from the Government’s energy support. Pausing, the PM replied: “I don’t think anybody is arguing that we shouldn’t have acted on energy.”

Not surprisingly, she doubled down, arguing her tax-cutting measures were the “right plan” and boasted she was prepared to take “controversial and difficult decisions” to get the economy moving.

But once again she deflected from the current market crisis, stressing how the difficult economic times were a global phenomenon, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The man, who predicted events, Rishi Sunak, let it be known he would not be attending this weekend’s Tory conference to – generously – give Truss space to “own the moment”. The Labour moment, perhaps.

Privately, some Tory MPs believe the game is up. They are scathing, demanding the Chancellor’s head. “Kwasi will have to go,” declared one. “She won’t have any option. They are actually crashing the economy and she will need somebody to blame.”

Another told The Guardian: “Labour will force us to vote one after another on 45p, bonuses, more nurses. If they start cutting public spending budgets, that will be disastrous.”

Conservative backbencher Simon Hoare mused how the post-Budget turmoil could be Truss’s Black Wednesday, which ultimately did for John Major in 1997.

The Dorset MP, tweeted: “In the words of Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday: ‘Today has been a very difficult day.’ These are not circumstances beyond the control of Govt/Treasury. They were authored there. This inept madness cannot go on.”

His Conservative colleague Mel Stride criticised the Government for not publishing an OBR forecast of the UK's economic outlook, insisting it needed to do so "as soon as possible".

A draft of the independent forecaster’s analysis was given to the Government before Friday’s Budget but it has not been published. The suspicion must be the forecast numbers were so bad that the Chancellor decided to wait. But the wait has fostered the market turmoil.

If the forecast numbers are indeed dire, then heaven knows what will happen on November 23 when Kwarteng is due to update the country.

Indeed, a growing number of Tories are insisting, given the pound’s fragility and the impending 1% hike in interest rates, November 23 is too far off.

When MPs return on October 11 the parliamentary process of debates and votes on the growth plan begins. Truss’s fear must be that some of her colleagues will simply withhold their support until clarity is provided – and swiftly.

Another potentially significant development this week was when Chris Philp, Kwarteng’s number two, refused to confirm the rise with inflation for benefits and pensions as previously promised by Sunak.

Heaven help Truss if she is really intent on boosting the pay of rich bankers while cutting the benefits and pensions of the most vulnerable in society. She will reap a political whirlwind at the next election; that is, if she survives that long.

What is clear is that without competence, confidence and credibility, the Tory Government, intent on borrowing hundreds of billions of pounds to fund its way to a “new era” of prosperity, is now on borrowed time. This sorry spectacle can surely only end one way.