The challenges facing the new Prime Minister could not be more severe or more urgent.
Whoever takes over next week – the frontrunner remains Liz Truss – will inherit a country in its sick bed.
A recession is looming, inflation is out of control and families are unable to afford the rocketing cost of food and fuel. The Resolution Foundation think-tank forecasts that three million more people are to be pushed into absolute poverty over the next two years.
The TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady is right to call for a Covid-style rescue package to save families on the brink of destitution.
Preventing the disaster about to descend on Britain requires radical and bold action. That must include using the state to support those in the greatest need. To do otherwise would be immoral and irresponsible.
What is alarming is that Ms Truss has shown no indication that she grasps that many people are living in fear of penury.
Icon betrayed
Few statesmen can claim to have changed the course of world history.
Mikhail Gorbachev was one of them. His leadership was crucial in bringing an end to the Cold War and setting Russia on the path to democracy.
In London and Washington DC he will always be hailed as a champion of freedom.
In the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania he is seen as an autocrat who tried to stop them leaving the Soviet Union.
Ultimately, history will recall Gorbachev as man who brought Russia in from the cold and campaigned for international co-operation.
It is a legacy that has been disastrously squandered by Vladimir Putin.
Book smart
The Duchess of Cornwall should be applauded for her campaign for more libraries in primary schools.
Instilling a love of reading can open up a whole new chapter in a child’s life.
