POLITICAL reality returns with a bang this week following the royal hiatus as Liz Truss sets out in more detail how she intends to lift Britain out of its economic hole.

Over the weekend as world leaders gather in London for the Queen’s funeral tomorrow, the PM will take the opportunity for informal talks with a number of them; principally, US President Joe Biden and the Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin. On Monday night, she’s off to New York for the UN General Assembly, where Truss will have formal talks with her counterparts, most notably on trade and Ukraine.

Yet her thoughts will be largely focused on the UK economy. Sterling’s sharp fall, threatening another bounce in inflation, means the Bank of England is expected – 24 hours before Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s “fiscal Friday” – to jack up interest rates by as much as 0.75% to 2.5%. The consequence is expected to cost mortgage-payers, on average, another £60 a month. Rates could hit 3% by December.

Mid-week, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, is due to lay out the Government’s initial help on energy bills for businesses, which looks set to begin in November, much to their anger, but will be backdated to October. The help will be reviewed regularly, which again will enrage firms, leaving them to struggle month by month.

On Friday, Kwarteng will expound the Government’s remedy for recovery. In a conference call last week, he told Treasury officials to “focus entirely on growth” with an aim of returning rates to 2.5% a year; boosterism of Boris Johnson proportions perhaps given the UK is facing a recession.

The energy price guarantee, which could cost the taxpayer northwards of £100bn, together with the reversal of the National Insurance hike and corporation tax rise, will form the centre-piece of the Chancellor’s mini-Budget.

On his first day in his new job, Kwarteng gave the clearest signal that the Treasury was under new management by sacking its top official, Tom Scholar, whom he and Truss regarded as the chief bean-counter, whose dedication to “abacus economics” and balancing the books rather than boosting growth had resulted in Britain’s lacklustre performance since the 2008 financial crisis.

As Keir Starmer moves his party rightwards towards the centre ground, Truss, the avid free-marketer, is determined to push the Conservatives further rightwards away from it. The dividing line in British politics is getting wider.

During the Tory leadership contest the PM rejected the economic emphasis being placed on redistribution as exemplified by the windfall tax and, instead, made clear she wanted to go hell for leather on creating growth, perhaps believing the “trickle-down” approach would - hopefully, in time for the 2024 General Election - benefit Middle England enough and also those all-important red wall seats, to keep her in power.

A telling moment came earlier this month when Truss was shown how her flagship policy of reversing the National Insurance hike would, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, benefit high earners by a whopping £1,800 a year and the lowest earners by just a measly £8.

Asked if this was fair, the Conservative leader didn’t hesitate. “Yes, it is fair,” she insisted.

As eyebrows across Britain rose in unison, the PM stressed how higher earners paid more tax, so cutting it benefited them more.

“But to look at everything through the lens of redistribution,” she argued, “is wrong because what I’m about is growing the economy. And growing the economy benefits everybody. So far, the economic debate for the past 20 years has been dominated by discussions about distribution. But what’s happened is that we have had relatively low growth.”

Underscoring the thrust of Trussonomics, Kwarteng is expected to confirm the Government will lift the lid on bankers’ bonuses in the hope it will make the City of London more attractive to more masters of the universe and thus boost investment and growth. Critics denounced such a move as “obscene,” “politically toxic” and a gift to Labour. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the next rail strike is set to coincide with the Tory conference.

Yet there may be more tax measures in the pipeline. Truss is said to be considering raising the £50,270 threshold, at which people in England start to pay the higher 40p income tax rate, to £80,000. Which would mean higher earners would save an average of £3,000 a year.

Of course, one consequence of such a move would to widen the tax gap still further between England and Scotland. The 41% higher rate of income tax here begins at £43,663. The difference to an £80,000 threshold would be quite stark, meaning Scottish middle and high-earners would be paying much more tax than their English counterparts.

It’s not certain the PM would go down this route; yet. It could be something she keeps until the Budget of 2023 with the hope it will boost her chances of staying in Downing St at the 2024 General Election. What some might regard as pre-poll bribery is not uncommon.

John Swinney, the Deputy FM, standing in on the economics brief while Kate Forbes is on maternity leave, will deliver his own emergency Budget review in the days following Kwarteng’s announcement but has already warned of “further savings,” totally at least £500m, to fund the Scottish Government’s measures to help Scots with the cost-of-living crisis.

The timing won’t be great as it is likely Swinney’s statement will come just before the SNP gathers for its annual conference in Aberdeen on October 8.

Let’s be clear, Truss now has a formidable task ahead of her; some might say an impossible one.

If she is to defy her critics, the PM will have to move with purpose at breakneck speed to have any chance of generating a feel-good factor in time for the 2024 election; at best, it might be a feel-less-bad factor.

However, with, realistically, just two years for her big gamble to start showing results, time is not on her side. And failure will only end in one way.