Tonight’s YouGov poll in the Times is brilliant news for Keir Starmer ahead of his conference speech tomorrow. It has Labour 17 points ahead, its biggest lead since the company started polling in 2001.

To be sure, the numbers reflect more voter disappointment with the government than a sudden bout of Starmer mania. Some 68 per cent of voters said the government was managing the economy badly. Only 12 per cent thought the ‘mini-Budget’ is affordable. Just 19 per cent said it was fair, against 57 per cent who thought it was not fair. And 69 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 opposed the scrapping of the 45p tax rate.

Now, backers of Liz Truss will say that she was clear she was prepared to do unpopular things to get growth going and that if the economy is growing at 2.5 per cent in 2024, then politics will look very different come the election. (It is also worth remembering that this is just one poll and the biggest Labour lead we have seen).

But these numbers, following the market reaction to the statement, are an awful start and will reduce her political capital. I suspect that Tory ministers who are opposed to her plans to liberalise immigration rules will feel emboldened by these numbers. Tory MPs will be less inclined to back controversial supply-side measures in these circumstances. Perhaps just as importantly, investors will be sceptical about how long-lasting Truss’s tax and regulation changes will be given these poll numbers.

The Truss administration now need a period of calm. But we wait to see whether the markets will give them that or not. The reaction to this afternoon’s statements from the Treasury and the Bank suggests they will not.