The pound rallied today, back to the level it was at before Kwasi Kwarteng’s explosive “fiscal event” last Friday, although the Chancellor has himself paid quite a price.

Behind sterling’s recovery is Truss and Kwarteng’s humiliating U-turn: they abandoned the plan to scrap the 45p income tax rate – a tax cut for top earners – after a huge backlash from their own MPs as well as the financial markets which were sent into a tizzy fit after the Chancellor’s so-called mini-budget.  

“What a day, it has been tough,” Kwarteng himself admitted this afternoon as he addressed Conservative delegates on the second day of the party’s unusually fraught conference in Birmingham.Â