TIME is the great healer, so it’s said, but not so for the new Prime Minister. The sound may be turned down on the political debate until after the Queen’s funeral next Monday, but with each day that passes, the problems pile up for Liz Truss.

Is she heading for a rude awakening at the hands of an angry public or is it possible that her retro economic policies, headlining on tax cuts and deregulation, will cushion her enough to see her successfully through the next election?

That seems unlikely. We seem poised if anything for an election battle in two years’ time that looks and sounds more like 1997 than 2019, with a tired and discredited Tory government seen off by a centre left Labour party.

But Liz Truss’s supporters and opponents are united on one point: she shouldn’t be underestimated. She didn’t get where she is today without cunning and political dexterity.

You have to wonder why on earth she wanted the job, with so many dreary difficulties to sort out. Food costs are at a 14-year high. We’re all getting stung at the checkout, with consumers paying on average £571 more for the household shop this year than last, according to the latest findings of research firm Kantar. Overall inflation dipped slightly in August due to a fuel price drop, but the Bank of England warns it could hit 13 per cent before the year is out. Happy Christmas one and all.

Ms Truss will be relieved to hear the Resolution Foundation think tank saying that her Energy Price Guarantee, capping bills at £2,500 (an opposition idea that she belatedly converted to), will help rich and poor households alike this year. It’s due to take four to six points off the headline rate of inflation.

But the storm clouds are gathering there too. The government is spending something like £150bn on capping our energy bills, but most people are still having to penny-pinch regardless. Bills will still be much higher when her guarantee comes in than they are now, so the hoped-for wave of public gratitude may be little more than a ripple. The badly off also spend a much bigger proportion of their incomes on heating so face a tough winter. In his mini-Budget next week, Kwasi Kwarteng will be closely watched to see if he will offer further help for bill-payers of modest means.

Controversially, once national insurance increases are reversed in April – an article of faith for Ms Truss – richer households will be getting fully twice as much support as poorer ones, says the Resolution Foundation.

Ms Truss made a show of being perfectly relaxed about pro-rich tax policies during the leadership campaign but I’m not sure first-time Tory voters of 2019 will share her enthusiasm.

And then there’s the massive increase in debt Truss is incurring to pay for all this, shoved onto future taxpayers, when billions could have been saved extending the windfall tax on energy companies.

It gets worse. Nurses could soon go on strike for the first time in their history, with a Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ballot on industrial action opening today. The RCN points to a “chronic” shortage of nurses and inadequate help for existing staff with the cost-of-living. A dire winter is in prospect in the NHS.

Liz Truss’s insistence on immediate tax cuts against such a backdrop may test the loyalty even of committed right wingers.

The answer, according to Ms Truss? Growth of 2.5 per cent, to bring gold flowing back into the exchequer. It’s an all-consuming mantra she’s underlined by sacking the Treasury’s chief mandarin, Sir Tom Scholar. Economists think it will be very hard to achieve this level of growth and that even if there is a short-term boost from her economic plans, it will be extremely hard to sustain.

But perhaps she would settle for a passing uplift in the economy. It would be a divisive approach, and fall far short of what she’s promising, but if she managed to consolidate support among traditional Conservative voters with her unashamed tax cuts and got the economy growing again even just briefly, in the run-up to the next election, then it’s just about conceivable this creaking Tory incumbency could limp on. Tory members would love her for that.

So many ifs. It remains unexplained how she intends to maintain support in the newly minted Tory constituencies of the English north and Midlands. Her commitment to so-called “levelling up”, focused on poorer regions, has been much less vocal than her focus on overall growth.

Mr Johnson knew that key voters wanted to hear about job creation in the regions. Truss seems far more relaxed than her predecessor about the City of London being the engine of that growth, promising deregulation.

It doesn’t have to be either/or, of course, but she needs to explain how any economic boost driven by financial services in the south-east will help those elsewhere in the UK who have been left behind during previous growth spurts. She needs to explain how she’ll ensure the growth is equitable.

There are other pitfalls. It’s apparent Ms Truss has no clear solution to the God-awful mess caused by Brexit in Northern Ireland. The EU has launched legal action against Britain for not fully implementing the agreement it negotiated. As the deadline for the UK to respond approaches, it’s reported that Truss’s first move will be to ask the EU for a further extension of the “grace period” (when not all cross-border checks have to be implemented). So much for creative solutions.

We wait expectantly. Liz Truss has less support than any other recent Tory leader at the point of taking office and has made enemies on the backbenches by shunning most supporters of Rishi Sunak. She knows that the Conservatives are as pitiless as Azkaban dementors with leaders they come to regard as liabilities, but is hoping for a show of party unity in the face of Labour’s threat.

Tory MPs will give her a few weeks – a “grace period”, to coin a phrase – but she’ll struggle to contain dissent if her eye-catching but broad-brush economic plan fails to close the gap with Labour. Does she really know what she’s doing? We’ll find out soon enough.