• The Office of Budget Responsibility has confirmed it could have produced an economic forecast in time for the “mini-budget”, but was not asked to do so by Kwasi Kwarteng. It adds further details to ongoing objections that the chancellor’s move, which included £45bn of tax cuts, without a clear economic forecast to back it up.

• Liz Truss will now attend a meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Prague in October, according to PA Media. It is understood the prime minister wanted to attend because energy and migration, both items on the agenda of the meeting, are two of her priorities and that she sees the need to work with other European leaders to resolve the issues. The move to attend the meeting of the group – French president Emmanuel Macron’s scheme to bring together EU nations and countries outside the bloc – will raise eyebrows given Truss’s explicit scepticism about the project only a few months ago as foreign secretary.

• A YouGov poll for the Times gives Labour a 33-point lead over the Conservatives, understood to be the biggest gap recorded since the late 1990s.

• Mel Stride, the Conservative chair of the Commons, has written an open letter to the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. Stride asks Kwarteng to bring forward the publication of the medium-term fiscal plan, and the OBR’s new forecast, which are both due on 23 November. Stride says the chancellor contributed to the recent turmoil in the markets by refusing to publish an OBR forecast alongside his mini-budget.

• The NASUWT has given a formal dispute notice to the Department for Education and other employers over its demand for a 12% pay rise for teachers, with the threat of a strike ballot if that is not met.

• Liz Truss repeatedly suggested that the “international situation” was primarily responsible for the economic turmoil in the UK markets. But in a speech tonight, Huw Pill, chief economist at the Bank of England, will stress that the mini-budget is a factor, too.

• Kwasi Kwarteng heightened speculation that benefits won’t be uprated in line with inflation. Asked if he would honour the commitment of the previous government, he said: “We are talking about helping people in the round. It is premature for me to come to a decision on that. But we are absolutely focused on making sure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected through what could be a challenging time.”

• Labour claimed that Liz Truss “made this disastrous situation even worse” with her BBC local radio interview round this morning. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, also urged Tory MPs to join Labour and other opposition parties in calling for parliament to be recalled

• Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, renewed his call for the Conservative party conference to be cancelled so that parliament can be recalled.

The Office of Budget Responsibility has confirmed that it could have produced an economic forecast in time for the “mini-budget”, but was not asked to do so by Kwasi Kwarteng.

It adds further details to ongoing objections that the chancellor’s move, which included £45bn of tax cuts, without a clear economic forecast to back it up.

In a letter to the Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford and the party’s shadow chancellor Alison Thewliss, the chair of the OBR confirmed that the body sent “a draft economic and fiscal forecast to the new chancellor on 6 September, his first day in office”.

Richard Hughes wrote: “We offered, at the time, to update that forecast to take account of subsequent data and to reflect the economic and fiscal impact of any policies the government announced in time for it to be published alongside the ‘fiscal event’.”

“In the event, we were not commissioned to produce an updated forecast alongside the Chancellor’s Growth Plan on 23 September, although we would have been in a position to do so to a standard that satisfied the legal requirements of the Charter for Budget Responsibility.”

Liz Truss will now attend a meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Prague in October, according to PA Media.

It is understood that the prime minister wanted to attend because energy and migration, both items on the agenda of the meeting, are two of her priorities and that she sees the need to work with other European leaders to resolve the issues.

The move to attend the meeting of the group – French president Emmanuel Macron’s scheme to bring together EU nations and countries outside the bloc – will raise eyebrows given Truss’s explicit scepticism about the project only a few months ago as foreign secretary.

The decision to attend comes with the EU and the UK still deadlocked over the Northern Ireland protocol, with the government’s plan to rip up the post-Brexit arrangements in the region causing major ill feeling between London and Brussels.

Truss is seeking to strike a rapport with European leaders including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Macron after meeting the pair at a UN summit in New York.

It comes after Truss courted controversy during the Tory leadership contest by answering “the jury’s out” on whether Macron was “friend or foe”.

As foreign secretary in June, she also said she did not “buy into” a Europe-wide political community.

A YouGov poll for the Times gives Labour a 33-point lead over the Conservatives, understood to be the biggest gap recorded since the late 1990s.

The polling, carried out on Wednesday and Thursday, recorded 54% saying they would vote Labour and 21% saying they would back Truss’s Tories.

Labour’s lead is fuelled by voters switching directly from the Tories, with 17% of those who backed Boris Johnson in 2019 saying they would vote Labour.

Only 37% of 2019 Conservative voters said they were planning to stick with the party.

Mel Stride, the Conservative chair of the Commons, has written an open letter to the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. The main point of the letter is to ask Kwarteng to bring forward the publication of the medium-term fiscal plan, and the OBR’s new forecast, which are both due on 23 November. (A Treasury minister has already implied this will not happen – see 11.36am.) But some of the other points in the letter are more critical.

• Stride says that Kwarteng contributed to the recent turmoil in the markets by refusing to publish an OBR forecast alongside his mini-budget. He says:

The fiscal impact of your growth plan significantly exceeds that of a typical budget and yet there was no OBR forecast to accompany it. It is hard to conclude other than that an absence of a forecast has in some part driven the lack of confidence in the markets. Some have formed the unfortunate impression that the government may be seeking to avoid scrutiny, possibly on account of expecting the OBR forecast to be unsupportive of the achievement of the economic outcomes the government expects from the growth plan, including 2.5% trend growth in the medium term.

There is nothing surprising about this analysis; it is what anybody trying to explain the fall in the value of sterling and the rise in government borrowing costs has been saying (with some eccentric exceptions). But few Tory MPs have been saying this out loud.

• Stride reveals that Kwarteng is refusing to appear before the Treasury select committee to give evidence about his mini-budget. The mini-budget was described as the biggest tax announcement for 50 years, and normally a chancellor would come to the committee soon afterwards to take questions on an announcement like this. But Stride says Kwarteng has refused an invitation to appear, and wants to delay giving evidence until after he has delivered the medium-term fiscal plan in late November. Stride called this “disappointing” and said previous chancellors had not acted like this.

• Stride says that Kwarteng has already received an “initial baseline” forecast from the OBR and he challenges him to publish it immediately.

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Nadeem Badshah is taking over now.

The NASUWT has today given a formal dispute notice to the Department for Education and other employers over its demand for a 12% pay rise for teachers, with the threat of a strike ballot if that is not met.

Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT, said:

A 5% pay award for 2022-23 is an insult with inflation running in the double digits and following a decade of real-terms pay cuts to teachers’ salaries.

The failure to invest in teachers will only further undermine the recruitment and retention of teachers and the continued provision of high-quality education for children and young people.

Ministers have failed to respond to our calls for negotiations and, once again, we are calling on them to get around the table to find a solution in order to avert potential industrial action.

Responsibility for any future industrial action now rests firmly and squarely with government and employers.

The NASUWT is traditionally the more moderate of England’s two main teaching unions but this year’s annual conference revealed pent-up anger over a string of low pay rises. The National Education Union has also said it will ballot its members over industrial action unless an “inflation-plus” pay offer is made.

Liz Truss, in her interviews this morning, repeatedly suggested that the “international situation” was primarily responsible for the economic turmoil in the UK markets. But in a speech tonight, Huw Pill, chief economist at the Bank of England, will stress that the mini-budget is a factor, too.

According to the text, released in advance, Pill will say:

Over the course of the past week, there has be a significant repricing of financial assets. Part of that repricing reflects broader global developments. Part of it reflects the ongoing normalisation of macroeconomic policy after the pandemic-induced episode of exceptional ease. But there is undoubtedly a UK-specific component.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee is not due to make another decision about interest rates until its meeting in November and, in his speech, Pill will defend not acting earlier. He will say:

I recognise that, as of today, November might seem a long time away.

For algorithmic traders, even nanoseconds can represent a long time. The media or political cycle operates over a matter of hours. And, as we saw yesterday, acting to sustain orderly markets may also require action at short order.

But monetary policy needs to be framed on a more considered or lower frequency basis, reflecting both the famously ‘long and variable lags’ in the transmission of monetary policy to price developments, as well as the need to distinguish signal from noise in the flow of incoming data and analysis.

And, repeating a line already used by the Bank, Pill will say “it is hard to avoid the conclusion” the tax cuts announced last week “will prompt a significant and necessary monetary policy response in November”. He is referring to a rate rise.

In May, when the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced a £15bn package of measures to help people with rising energy costs, he said that he expected benefits for next year to be uprated in line with the inflation figure for September, as usual. That would mean “a very significant increase in benefits next year, in excess of the rate of inflation, which will be very positive for those in receipt of them”, he told MPs.

But that no longer applies. Last night, on ITV’s Peston, Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, refused to commit to uprating benefits in line with inflation. And on his visit to Darlington Kwasi Kwarteng heightened speculation that benefits won’t be uprated in line with inflation. Asked if he would honour the commitment of the previous government, he said:

We are talking about helping people in the round. It is premature for me to come to a decision on that. But we are absolutely focused on making sure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected through what could be a challenging time.

The next question was about whether Kwarteng was committed to maintaining the triple lock, which ensures that the state pension rises in line with earnings, or inflation, or 2.5%, whichever is higher, and this time his answer was very different. He said:

The prime minister has been absolutely committed to the triple lock and we are absolutely committed to maintaining it.

Ministers “need to be honest with the public” that services will stop or be scaled back, the head of the union representing senior civil servants has said, amid fears a “new era of austerity” is about to be unleashed.

Concern was expressed by trade unions representing public sector workers today in response to reports that departments are being asked to draw up plans for cuts as a result of the crisis sparked by the mini-budget.

Civil service departments were already delivering an average of 5% efficiency savings agreed as part of a review last year, yet it now appeared the government was asking for those plans to be ripped up “in a state of panic”, said Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants. He went on:

If the government refuses to compensate public services for soaring inflation, or even cut their budgets back further, they need to be honest with the public. Services are going to stop or be scaled back and the government needs to be accountable for those decisions.

Calling for a general election, Unison’s general secretary, Christina McAnea, said:

Ministers must listen to the world’s economic experts urging them to junk this disastrous financial experiment. Suggestions that benefits won’t rise with soaring inflation and beleaguered public services are to be squeezed is a terrifying prospect. The government seems to have no idea of the damage its foolhardy approach is wreaking.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the ASCL was extremely concerned about the “bleak prospects” for the UK economy after the mini-budget. “There are many implications but one of the most worrying is that this will lead to a new era of austerity for public services, including education,” he said.

The note for Tory MPs about the mini-budget obtained by Adam Payne (see 2.10pm) says it will “put the UK on a path to higher growth”. It even quotes figures from the growth plan document suggesting the measures could increase tax revenues by £47bn a year after five years (although it does not quote the small print in the document saying the £47bn figure is “purely illustrative” and does “not provide an assessment of what effect the policy package will have”.)

But today the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has published a report saying that the impact of the measures in the mini-budget on growth will be “almost negligible”. It is based on an analysis of the proposal carried out by the thinktank in conjunction with Oxford Economics, economic forecasting specialists. The report says:

While support for household and business energy bills makes a material difference to economic growth in the short term, we find that the growth plan tax cuts have an almost negligible impact on the size of the economy by the end of the forecast period, with output only around 0.4 per cent higher by 2027–28 than it would have been without the tax cuts. The growth plan’s tax measures therefore look set to fall well short of the chancellor’s stated aim of boosting GDP growth back to 2.5 per cent from the OBR’s previous assessment of trend growth settling at around 1.7 per cent per year.

The report also says that the extra tax revenue generated by this extra growth will be just £6bn – a fraction the amount being spent by the government on the tax cuts. It says:

With the economy ending the forecast period 0.4 per cent bigger than it would be without the growth plan, additional tax revenue from this higher economic output pushes in the other direction. However, we estimate that this revenue boost is likely to be only around £6 billion by 2027–28 – a small fraction of the fiscal cost of the measures themselves.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, has rejected calls from the opposition for the mini-budget to be shelved. Speaking on a visit in Darlington, asked if he had message for the financial markets, he replied:

Absolutely. We are sticking to the growth plan and we are going to help people with energy bills. That’s my two top priorities.

The growth plan was the Treasury title for the mini-budget.

Scotland’s public sector unions have accepted an increased pay offer brokered by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, which led them to suspend strikes in schools and refuse collections next week.

In an escalating protest against a 3.5% national pay offer that saw mountains of refuse in Edinburgh last month, Unison, Unite and the GMB were due to strike for three days in schools in 11 council areas, with refuse workers following suit. That action was suspended after the offer was tabled earlier this month.

Unite and Unison said today its members have accepted a deal equivalent to a 10% pay increase for the lowest paid. The GMB had already backed it. Those under £20,500 will get a flat rate rise of £2,000; those earning up to £39,000 a rise of £1,925, with a 5% increase for those earning up to £60,000, with a maximum of £3,000 for those over £60,000.

Other public services under Scottish government control, including the nationalised rail operator ScotRail, midwives, schools and universities, still face industrial action as unions battle against low pay offers from employers, putting Sturgeon under even greater pressure over public spending.

The EIS, Scotland’s largest teachers’ union, has recommended strike action in schools over a 5% pay offer. It announced today it has started balloting for strike action by its university members, urging them to reject a 3% offer. Unite began balloting members at 11 universities on Tuesday.

Non-teaching staff at Dundee university have been striking over pension cuts for up to four weeks. RMT members in ScotRail will strike on 1, 8 and 10 October – the last day of this year’s Scottish National party annual conference in Aberdeen. The Royal College of Midwives opened a ballot on industrial action on Thursday.

And here is more from Julia Kollewe on the business blog on mortgage products being taken off the market since Friday. She says:

Forty-one per cent of mortgage products have been taken off the market since Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget last Friday, which sparked panic in financial markets, and expectations of a jump in the Bank of England’s base rate to 6% by next summer.

A further 321 products were withdrawn overnight, on top of the record 935 pulled the day before, according to Moneyfacts.

Between Friday and today a total of 1,621 residential mortgage products have been withdrawn leaving 2,340 on sale today.

According to Defaqto, more than 20 providers have withdrawn their entire fixed rate mortgage range.

Katie Brain of Defaqto says: “What products are left are changing at a rapid pace, lenders seem to be really unsure of what to offer and what price with so many changes in the money markets at the moment.”

There is more on the business live blog here.

Union leaders are demanding a “cast-iron assurance” from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, that there will be no real-terms cuts to public services.

They have asked for a meeting with Truss and Kwarteng in an open letter, prompted by reports saying cabinet ministers are being told that they must manage within existing budgets, even though inflation means they may be going down in real terms. As Chris Philp, chief secretary to the Treasury, confirmed this morning (see 8am), ministers are also being asked to make “efficiency savings”.

In the letter, Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, and the leaders of 18 individuals unions say:

Strong public services are vital to this nation’s health and the economy.

But since 2010 our hospitals, schools, councils, care homes, prisons and other essential services have been forced to absorb savage spending cuts. And every month the bills they face are rising, leaving much less for actual services …

Prime Minister – you promised in your leadership election campaign that there would be no reduction in public spending.

But according to reports, another wave of crippling austerity could be on its way in November in order to fund tax cuts for the super-rich.

This would be an act of national vandalism and a huge betrayal of the British people.

We therefore seek an urgent meeting with you and the chancellor, and a cast-iron assurance that you will not make further real-terms cuts to public services – now or in the future.

Frontline services are already at breaking point. They must not be sacrificed to make the top 1% even richer.

Unions will not sit by and allow the government to impoverish public services and the amazing staff who deliver them.

We won’t allow the social fabric of this country to be destroyed.

Apart from O’Grady, the other signatories are: Christina McAnea (Unison), Sharon Graham (Unite), Gary Smith (GMB), Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted (NEU), Patrick Roach (NASUWT), Paul Whiteman (NAHT), Gill Walton (RCM), Matt Wrack (FBU), Mark Serwotka (PCS), Mike Clancy (Prospect), Dave Penman (FDA), Steve Gillan (POA), Iain Lawrence (NAPO), Roy Rickhuss (Community), Karen Middleton (CSP), Mark Sargeant (RCP), Annette Mansell-Green (BDA) and Paul Donaldson (HCSA).

The SNP also says Liz Truss’s morning interviews have made the case for a recall of parliament even stronger. In a statement Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said:

Liz Truss has shown she is reckless, clueless and completely out of touch with people in Scotland - who are increasingly worried about the impact of the disastrous Tory budget on their mortgages, pensions, and household budgets.

Parliament must be recalled immediately and an emergency statement must be brought forward to reverse the damage of the Tory budget and prevent a catastrophic economic crash.

If this tin-eared prime minister refuses to act - then she should step aside and let someone else do the right thing before millions of people suffer.

No one will feel reassured after the prime minister’s car crash radio interviews this morning - and the longer she refuses to act the more damage she will do.

Labour has claimed that Liz Truss “made this disastrous situation even worse” with her BBC local radio interview round this morning.

In a statement Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, also urged Tory MPs to join Labour and other opposition parties in calling for parliament to be recalled. She said:

The prime minister’s interviews this morning have made this disastrous situation even worse. Her failure to answer questions about what will happen with people’s pensions and mortgages will leave families across the country facing huge worry.

It is disgraceful that the family finances of people across the country are being put on the line simply so the government can give huge unfunded tax cuts to the richest companies and those earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

This is a serious situation made in Downing Street and is the direct result of the Conservative government’s reckless actions.

If the prime minister continues to prioritise saving her face over saving people’s homes, Tory MPs must join Labour in calling for parliament to be recalled so this kamikaze budget can be reversed.

Failure to do so will make them complicit in this reckless bout of economic self-harm.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has renewed his call for the Conservative party conference to be cancelled so that parliament can be recalled. He said:

There is no way the Conservative party can hold their conference whilst the British economy nosedives. The arrogance of Liz Truss and Conservative ministers is frankly an insult to millions who now face higher bills as a direct result of last week’s budget. From this weekend they will abandon their posts in Downing Street, leaving a mess behind them and heading for the cocktail parties and mutual back-patting of the classic conference season.

In one fell swoop, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng crashed the economy, trashed the pound and paved the way for record interest rate rises.

Innocent mortgage borrowers will be left to pick up the bill of this gross incompetence. It is time parliament is recalled and new measures passed to save families and pensioners unable to cope with this mortgage crisis. This botched budget cannot survive any longer.

Ken Clarke, the former Conservative chancellor, has told Times Radio that the government needs to make a statement soon to calm the markets in the light of the crisis generated by the mini-budget. He said:

Ideally, that statement should come in the next two or three days. But we don’t want [to rush] into something else more stupid.

Basically, we can’t have both the government and the Bank [of England] saying that they’re not able to do anything more till November, that would be very, very worrying.

If the pound sinks any further, then they will have to perhaps retract some of the measures.

This morning Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, seemed to rule out the publication of the medium-term fiscal plan being brought forward to provide early reassurance. (See 11.36am.)

Clarke, who has been caustic in his criticism of the mini-budget in recent days, also said no other Conservative government in his lifetime would have made a mistake like this. He said:

I still hope in two years’ time, they might look like a normal, competent, Conservative government because no Conservative government in my lifetime would ever have made a mistake of this kind.

Fiscal discipline or good housekeeping, as Margaret [Thatcher] always used to say, was one of the very strong cards that the government had because it was regarded as good at running the economy by the public.

John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister and a former finance secretary, told MSPs this morning that he thought the UK’s defence of the mini-budget was unsustainable. Giving evidence to the Covid-19 committee at Holyrood, he said:

If the UK financial system is going to collapse, they will have to change it. It is a mess this morning, an absolute mess, a total mess. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

So how that will prevail I have no idea.

Why is that happening? It’s because the markets don’t believe the UK any longer believes in fiscal sustainability.

If the UK government wants to prove to the markets that the UK government still believes in fiscal sustainability, and it wants to protect that tax position it set out last Friday, it’s only got one place to go - reducing spending.

Swinney also said he did not see the mini-budget as Conservative. He told another committee of MSPs:

I actually wouldn’t accuse [the plans] of being Conservative, there’s certain protections of core values that are associated with Conservatism and I don’t recognise that in the financial statement from last Friday.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, is under pressure to bring forward the publication of his medium-term fiscal plan. This week he said the plan, which will explain how the government intends to meet its fiscal rules, and bring debt down in the medium term, and which will coincide with the publication of an economic forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, would be set out on 23 November. Some Tories say that is too long to wait for an announcement that could settle the market.

But in his interview with the Today programme this morning Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, appeared to rule out the date changing. Asked if there were any circumstances in which it might be brought forward, he replied: “The statement is fixed for 23rd.”

In her interview round this morning Liz Truss sometimes gave the impression that her energy price guarantee will mean that no household will face a fuel bill of more than £2,500 a year.

That is not correct. Under the plan, unit prices are capped at a rate that means that the average household will pay no more than £2,500. But if you use more gas and electricity than average homes do, you will pay more. By the laws of maths, half of people will pay more than the average. [See footnote for update]

Some of the reporting on this probably has not been as clear as it should have been because headlines resist subtlety and making the point that average bills are notionally capped at £2,500 a year probably means more to people than explaining that unit prices are actually capped at 34.0p/kWh for electricity and 10.3p/kWh for gas.

In her interviews, when talking about the £2,500 figures, Truss mostly said it applied to a “typical” bill. (Typical is not the same as average, but never mind.)

But sometimes she said all bills would be capped at £2,500. She told Radio Leeds that people in West Yorkshire would not face energy bills of £6,000. She went on: “Through the energy price guarantee, the maximum will be £2,500.” And she told Radio Lancashire: “This is why we’ve taken action to make sure people’s bills are no more than £2,500.”

The fact checking organisation Full Fact has criticised Truss for misleading voters. Will Moy, the organisation’s chief executive, said:

We wrote to the prime minister about getting this wrong only yesterday. The government’s energy plans will affect every household in Britain this winter. And yet Liz Truss has repeatedly misled listeners this morning.

She must now publicly correct her mistake to make sure people are not misled about their energy prices and hit with unexpected and unaffordable energy bills this winter.

UPDATE: Thank you to all the readers who queried the statement: “By the laws of maths, half of people will pay more than the average.” You are right to say that that is not accurate if you take average to mean mean (the total of all payments, divided by the number of people who pay). It is only technically accurate if you take average to mean median (the payment exactly at mid point between the highest and the lowest). I’m afraid I was using the word in a general sense, to try to make a point with some force and clarity.

And this is what journalists and commentators are saying on Twitter about Liz Truss’s morning interview round. The verdict is harsh.

From the Observer’s Toby Helm

From the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges

From my colleague Pippa Crerar

From Politics Home’s Alan White

From the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment

From ITV’s Paul Brand

From the Observer’s Sonia Sodha

From the Times’ Steven Swinford

From the i’s Paul Waugh

From my colleague John Crace

From City AM’s Jack Mendel

From Byline Times’ Adam Bienkov

From the New Statesman’s Adrian Bradley

Liz Truss is in denial. That is the primary takeaway from this morning’s BBC local radio interview round. She was asked repeatedly about the economic turmoil unleashed by the mini-budget last Friday, which has pushed up government borrowing costs, and which is set to push up mortgage rates more sharply than was expected because it included unfunded tax cuts and traders do not believe the government’s claim that they will eventually pay for themselves through higher growth. But instead she would not address this point at all, and instead she insisted on regurgitating a series of red herring talking points.

She claimed that the “vast majority” of what was announced on Friday related to the energy bills package. This is true in the sense that, for the first time on Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, put a price tag on the energy bills measures already announced and that, at £60bn for six months, this cost more than the tax cuts. But these measures had already been announced, and the price was no surprise. It was not that that spooked the markets. It was the unfunded tax cuts, the spurious claims about the impact they might have on growth (not backed by an OBR analysis), and the hint on Sunday from Kwarteng that the government would go further.

Truss claimed that this was a global crisis, caused by Vladimir Putin. In terms of energy prices, she is absolutely right. But the energy bills package did not cause the current turmoil. And it was not Putin’s decision to abolish the 45% highest rate of tax in the UK, to ban the OBR from producing a new economic forecast, or accelerate a programme of unfunded tax cuts.

And, when asked about interest rates, Truss tried to imply that was nothing to do with her, because they are set by the independent Bank of England. They are. But the Bank responds to decisions taken by the government. Her answers on this were not quite dishonest, but they were certainly disingenuous.

Truss is not daft and she must know that the ‘lines to take’ she is relying upon do not address the questions she needs to answer. The BBC radio presenters who were interviewing her could tell she was flannelling, and Tory MPs who were listening will have thought the same. It is hard to see her getting through Conservative party conference without better answers than these.

Next we go to BBC Radio Bristol, where James Hanson is presenting.

Liz Truss is delivering the spiel about cutting energy bills.

Q: The Bank of England has had to step in to clean up the mess you caused. This has never happened.

Truss says we are facing a difficult global situation.

Q: But this is not about Putin?

Truss says this is about Putin and the war in Ukraine.

She claims the “vast majority” of the package announced on Friday was about energy support.

Q: You did not have to make it worse. You spooked the markets. Can you guarantee that pensions are safe?

Truss says the Bank of England does a very good job delivering financial stability.

She says:

This is a global financial situation. Currencies are under pressure around the world.

Q: People are worried about being able to keep their homes?

Truss says it is an important principle that interest rates are set by the Bank of England.

She has used this line several times now. She is refusing to accept the mini-budget has made higher interest rates more likely.

Graham Liver on BBC Radio Lancashire is now getting his slot with Liz Truss.

Q: Do you agree with Jacob Rees-Mogg that people opposed to fracking are luddites?

Truss says: “I would not have put it like that.”

Q: Are you ashamed of what you have done?

Truss says we have to remember what people were facing – fuel bills going up to £6,000, rising inflation and slow growth.

Now people are not facing those fuel bill rises.

Q: But people are worried about their mortgages and their pensions.

Truss says her measures will reduce inflation.

(She is talking about the energy price guarantee, which will reduce inflation. But the min-budget will put it up.)

She repeats the point about taking decisive action. It would have been “unconscionable” to allow people to go into the winter facing high energy bills.

Q: We saw the pound dive. We cannot have our economic system undermined like this.

Truss says the government is working with the Bank of England. She goes on: “We face a difficult international situation.”

Q: Does a strong leader plough on, or does a strong leader change course when necessary?

Truss replies:

This is the right plan that we have set out.

This is about making sure people are going into the winter not worried about high fuel bills, which is what we were looking at.

It was simply unconscionable that we could have allowed that to happen.

Q: Can you reassure listeners that your judgment is better than that of people like the IMF and the Bank of England, who have criticised the mini-budget?

Truss says:

I have to do what I believe is right for the country and what is going to help move our country forward.

Liz Truss is on the show.

She says she has slept well, and “it’s great to be here”.

Rima Ahmed points out that the pound has hit a record low, the IMF has called for a rethink and the Bank of England has spent £65bn propping up the markets. “Where have you been?”

Truss says people were facing energy bills of up to £6,000 this winter. The government had to take decisive action.

Q: But that was before the mini-budget. We have not heard from you for four days.

Truss says she is here today.

She says the government had to take urgent action, on fuel bills, and to get the economy moving.]

That means taking controversial and difficult decisions.

She wants to get the economy moving.

Q: How has your risk gone?

Truss says it means people and businesses will be paying lower taxes. It has meant infrastructure projects will go ahead. And it has protected people from rising fuel bills.

Chris Philp, chief secretary to the Treasury, has been doing the national broadcast round on behalf of No 10 this morning. He confirmed that government departments are being asked to make “efficiency savings” and that they will have to stick to existing spending limits, despite inflation. He told Sky News:

The efficiency and prioritisation exercise is designed to firstly make absolutely sure we stick to those spending limits and secondly make sure that we are prioritising expenditure, not on anything that is wasteful, but on things that really deliver frontline public services and drive economic growth.

We are going to stick rigidly to those spending limits because it is important to be financially responsible.

He also said the government would not be apologising for the turmoil caused by the mini-budget. He said:

No one’s perfect but I’m not going to apologise for having a plan to grow the economy.

I am certainly not going to apologise for having an energy intervention which is protecting every single household in this country.

Sir Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, has criticised last week’s mini-budget, saying it undermined financial institutions.

In an interview with the BBC’s Today programme, Carney said:

There was an undercutting of some of the institutions the underpin the overall approach - so not having an OBR forecast is much-commented upon and the government, I think, has accepted the need for that but that was important …

Unfortunately having a partial budget, in these circumstances - tough global economy, tough financial market position, working at cross-purposes with the Bank - has led to quite dramatic moves in financial markets.

Referring to the inflationary measures in the mini-budget, which has led to expectations that the Bank will have to increase interest rates by more than it otherwise would have done to curb the inflation created as a result, Carney said that in the mini-budget the government was “working at some cross-purposes with the Bank in terms of short-term support for the economy”.

Good morning. Four years ago, when she was chief secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss was overheard by a Green party activist gossiping about her colleagues in a restaurant. He kindly posted all her comments on Twitter and, among the personal gossip, he recorded Truss setting out her approach to risk. Theresa May was too “pacifist”, she said. “Whereas I embrace the chaos. I’m a thrill-seeker.”

No one ever expected Truss to “embrace the chaos” quite as recklessly as she has done in her first few weeks as prime minister. As we report in our overnight story, the Bank of England is having to spend £65bn repairing the damage done to financial markets by last week’s disastrous mini-budget. As Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in their story on the political fallout, some Tories think this is an “extinction-level” moment for the party.

One factor that has made the situation worse is that Liz Truss has been silent since the mini-budget, apart from an interview with CNN shown in the US on Sunday. But this morning she is giving interviews – to BBC local radio stations. The Conservative leader normally does a round of local radio interviews at this point ahead of the party conference, and that apparently is why they are in the diary. She is up first on Radio Leeds at 8am. What she says is likely to attract a lot more attention than a normal interview on the station. We will be covering all the interviews here.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com