A letter in the Times, of all places, called it first. “The UK is not a poor country. The problem is not with how much wealth the country has but with how that wealth is used and distributed,” wrote Prof Trevor Curnow. “Simply boosting the country’s wealth will probably only increase inequality, and the poor will pay a price for this that they cannot afford.”

After two years of astonishing investment in state intervention from a Tory government, new prime minister Liz Truss intends to put the pandemic era behind her and her party by committing to a form of radical Conservatism – a super-low-tax, “high-wage” economy. Truss thinks this will boost growth, attack the problem of British productivity, and cement her position politically. It’s staggering how wrong-footed she is.

The energy price cap and cuts to national insurance would see the richest tenth of UK households receive support worth £4,700 on average

Truss is a proponent of trickle-down economics; a position that (although I personally dispute it) is an economically coherent argument in the right hands. But the Prime Minister’s policies cannot possibly achieve her desired ends. The PM thinks growth is simply about ordinary people having cash to spend, or businesses making investments. She forgets growth requires the one magic ingredient we’re lacking: confidence.

To start with the obvious: being a hard-line tax cutter won’t put money back in “hardworking” families’ pockets but in those likely to be working in a more leisurely fashion, possibly from home in a newly-erected garden office. And tax cuts make absolutely no difference to the people in most acute need during this cost-of-living crisis, since the poorest households in Britain pay no tax at all.

Current figures indicate that, today, 43 per cent of the population lives on less than the income tax threshold of £12,500 a year. Many are part-time workers on very low wages and most are pensioners. Almost all require some support through the tax credits or direct benefits system, which would be reduced under a low tax system. Income tax cuts benefit the richest and penalise the poorest by shrinking the pot needed to help meet their needs. And the appointment of Chloe Smith as Work and Pensions secretary indicates there’ll be little benefit reform under the Truss government: Smith has voted against every posited extension to financial aid for households, and supported proposals to retract and withdraw benefits.

According to calculations by the Resolution Foundation think tank, the combination of the energy price cap, at an average of £2,500 per household, together with cuts to national insurance, would see the richest tenth of UK households receive support worth £4,700 on average. The tenth of society that’s at risk of slipping into true destitution would see only £2,200 in help. Those figures are indefensible, and they don’t even factor in the full impact of Truss’s tax-cut proposals. Nor do they absorb the negative knock-on effect of the wealth-generation created by a housing market boom if she cuts stamp duty. Reductions in stamp duty during the pandemic served only to overheat the housing market, while doing nothing to support the millions who were and are inadequately and unstably housed – particularly those renting from private landlords. Today, a property owner with a large amount of equity can fairly expect their net worth to continue to rise next year. Conversely, those who cannot meet their basic needs could end up illegally evicted and homeless, with no legal route to pursue their losses.

How do ordinary people feel when Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, do media rounds defending the proposed removal of caps on bankers’ bonuses? Perhaps for the prime minister, a lapsed Remainer, there’s sense in looking after London’s financial services industry, post-Brexit. But for a leader in desperate need of a foothold in the opinion polls, it stinks. It won’t sell. Even if it works – spoiler: it won’t – the long-term impact of her slash-and-burn tactics won’t be seen until long after it’s lost her a general election.

Truss is attempting to offset the unpopularity of relaxed banker bonuses by introducing bizarre local income tax structure proposals. Regions (read, constituencies) in need of levelling-up would be granted a lower tax rate – both for corporations operating and investing in an area and individual citizens.

It’s a pathetically transparent attempt to shore up the new “Blue Wall” – and deeply unfair and regressive in practice. Research from anti-tax campaigners, including the Taxpayer’s Alliance, shows male workers aged 45 to 54 are the largest group of earners. For them to be considered in the top one per cent in London they must earn £700,000 a year. To be in the top one per cent in the rest of the UK, they’d need an annual income of £162,000. OK, 35 per cent of the highest earners live in London, but what do these figures mean for those who are well out of that category (ie, the overwhelming majority of taxpayers)? How is a lower rate of tax fair within communities where housing is cheaper and middle incomes place households higher up the local economic spectrum?

The Prime Minister returns from the US this week with no trade deal in her fists. As a former trade secretary under Boris Johnson, she cannot blame the previous administration. So she must focus on domestic matters to secure her position as leader. If this is what Truss-onomics really looks like, it’s a disastrous political calculation – not only for the Tories’ own support base but for the health and life of so many communities. As Joe Biden says: “I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics. It has never worked.” No wonder he doesn’t want to invest in Truss’s less-than-Great Britain.

Hannah Fearn is a journalist and columnist specialising in social affairs. She was comment editor of the Independent for seven years and writes a weekly column for that title. Her journalism also appears in the i Newspaper, Guardian, Financial Times, HuffPost UK and others