The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.

This is a global player original podcast.

It's half-past three on Thursday afternoon.

We've recorded, we've re-recorded, we've re-recorded. And now I am re-re-recording the introduction to this episode of the podcast, because it has been such an astonishing day of rumours swirling, plots thickening, people talking.

Quasi Qateng has been in Washington at the annual IMF meeting.

Liz Truss had the most appalling meeting last night with her backbenches where she was heard

in something like frosty silence and disapproval. Just to give you a flavour of what it's like, I was at Westminster earlier on today

and bumped into someone who until a few weeks ago had been a cabinet minister in Boris Johnson's

government.

And this person said to me that Liz Truss has unleashed hell on the country.

That's not language you normally hear from people who have sat round the cabinet table together

until a few weeks ago. But Quasi Quarteng, despite all the projections that a U-turn was imminent,

seems to be stubbornly digging in. If you had to U-turn on a major part of your mini-budget,

would you have to consider your position as Chancellor? I'm totally focused on the growth agenda,

Faisal. I'm totally focused on making

sure that people are helped with their energy bills, that the energy price guarantee is understood,

that the scale of our intervention, credible intervention of the British state is understood,

and that we can actually deliver this country a path, get us on a trajectory to growing the economy so that everyone benefits.

Can you acknowledge what is the consensus in the market, the Bank of England have said it to,

which is that there are specific factors at work at the UK following your mini budgets?

What I am going to acknowledge is the fact that it is a very dicey situation globally. That's what people

are saying to me. The people are saying that we don't... There's nothing specific going on with the UK.

...