Their problem (and this was true for every government from Blair onwards) is that you cannot fight reality with ideology and spin.
Their stated goal - to reign in public spending and promote growth - is possible to achieve. However to do that, they would have to go through the budget and remove all waste, and prioritize measures that promote growth.
To reduce waste, that means eliminating a lot of things that were never reigned in after 2008 (in fact they've gotten much worse) - PFI, outsourcing, consultants brought in to advise governments, procurement (of "skills" and materials), artificial internal markets, rigged privatizations and so on. Sorting those things out would save tens / hundreds of billions over the medium and long term. They'd also have to genuinely simplify the tax regime to remove fiddles, as well as bring in liability for those who profit from helping tax avoidance take place, and keep tight and effective control of what they were funding. This would mean no taxpayer-funded away days, wine tastings, excessive (as in above that contractually required) payouts, strict oversight of local government and promotion of an accountability regime that held all those who abused the public purse criminally liable.
To promote growth, they'd have to spend only on things that would result in that - so for a start anything that can reduce pressure on the cost of living and thereby reduce the pressure on wages (so more energy efficiency and energy generation, public transport, social housing, improved communication links etc). They'd also need measures to eliminate monopolies, clean up markets (an honest services legal requirement for all executives of a company most of all) and encourage small business development (things like eliminating business rates for small firms and making the high streets much more open to independent shops). The Amazons and Ubers of this world would also need to pay a rate of tax that reflects the contribution the rest of society makes to their success. If workers are to use the gig economy, they need to have support (in terms of secure homes etc) and the ability to retrain for new jobs as needed.
To do both would need proper honest engagement with the public. People are not stupid, they understand the mess we are in and they will (or at least the vast majority will) play their part in what is required to fix things. What they will not accept, indeed what should never be accepted, is the vast majority of the country doing its bit whilst its leaders and the richest 5% rake it in.
Truss and Kwarteng's main problem was that, thanks to their beliefs, they couldn't do any of the above or indeed anything that would actually help with what they claimed to want to do. They sabotaged their own government and are now rightfully going to be chased out of office.
My only hope is that their replacement, as their first act, is honest with us about the scale of our problems and what needs to be done. They need to tell us that only together will we get through this and that their government will act on that basis; there will be no more culture wars, no more union bashing, no more political gesturing. They then need to actually do that.
