At least she tried. British Prime Minister Liz Truss understood that the high-tax, cheap-cash model that had been in place since 2009 had run its course. There was no money left. The lockdowns and the Ukraine war brought the crisis to a head, but it would have happened anyway. You can’t carry on forever creating currency for state officials to spend.

During the party primary that followed Boris Johnson’s unexpected, and possibly temporary, resignation, Truss made clear that she intended to tackle the problem at its root, cutting taxes and allowing interest rates to rise to a more historically normal level.