All that trickled down from Liz Truss's Number 10 was incompetence and inertia - David Behrens

Norfolk is well known for producing turkeys that have gone before Christmas, so the inevitable outcome of her premiership was at least in keeping with tradition.

But what will be the legacy of a term that was over even before they could change the titles of Have I Got News For You? Certainly not the economic model on which she set out her stall. All that trickled down from Number 10 during her reign was incompetence and inertia.

It didn’t take long for the malaise to spread to councils, who stopped even trying to deliver some of the services expected of them. Eight cities cancelled their Guy Fawkes night events on the grounds that they were now too expensive. Manchester claimed there was nowhere suitable in the entire city to hold one.

In Leeds, the council scrapped all six of its community bonfires, saying they’d have run up a bill of more than £200,000. But the defeatist staff of City Hall must have gone to the Kwasi Kwarteng school of economics if they think that’s how much it costs for a big box of fireworks and a few hours’ overtime for staff to marshall visitors. Ms Truss’s predecessor would have rebranded the exercise a “community toasting” and invited families who can’t afford to heat their homes to come and warm themselves on the fire.

Rebranding – this business of finding new ways not to call a spade a spade – is all the rage right now, with a report on the Johnson government’s flagship policy of levelling up the north concluding that the phrase had become toxic and recommending it be renamed “regional rebalancing” – as if that were in any way less ambiguous. The report contained more hot air than an uncancelled bonfire but failed to recognise that it’s not the parlance people don’t trust; it’s the policymakers who spout it.

On the railways, where mistrust is as ingrained as the dirt in the seats, it was also a bad week. The mayor of West Yorkshire was among those sounding off at wholesale cancellations by TransPennine Express, who in turn blamed Covid, staff sickness and a training backlog for “unprecedented pressure” on its ability to “operate a consistent service”. As explanations go, this was as hollow as the pit in which the PM buried herself – they never ran a consistent service in the first place. All Covid did was to give them another excuse not to. The timetable now is so academic that it’s hard to tell if they’re even on strike or not.

And it’s unlikely to improve. Ms Truss’s failure to commit to a new high-speed line between Liverpool and Leeds, despite promising to do so while running for office, says everything you need to know about the nonexistence of any real intent to level up the north – or indeed to regionally rebalance it.

But while we can only guess what her successor’s priorities will be – or even whether he or she will be able to find Leeds on a map – we must acknowledge that one Government policy is still on the rails. Unfortunately it’s one that almost no-one seems to want.

This is the so-called Festival of Brexit, a £122m “party” to celebrate the UK’s departure from Europe, which was commissioned by Theresa May and has endured despite Covid, staff shortages, and the absence of any trains to take people there. That is perhaps why attendances have been only one per cent of the original estimate.

I was unaware of it until this week, when a Commons committee declared it an “unadulterated shambles” and commissioned a report on why so much taxpayer money was frittered away for so little return.

One would have thought Whitehall had learned its lesson from the last time it threw a party and almost nobody came – that was the debacle of the Millennium Dome, which did at least become successful when offloaded into private hands. The Festival of Brexit – or Unboxed, as it is now known, following yet another rebranding exercise – shows no sign of being turned around, and is thus unique in current government thinking. But where is the logic that can justify profligacy on such a scale and not the cost of a few boxes of fireworks for a party that families would actually attend and enjoy? Wouldn’t that have been the very manifestation of trickle-down economics?

To answer that, you’d need to ask the soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister. You’ll find her this weekend back in Norfolk, turning herself in at the nearest turkey farm.