Liz Truss's exit still leaves the Tory MPs who put her in power and then cheered her on – Brian Wilson

Liz Truss is history. There will be no plaque on the wall of Paisley’s West Primary School, just a life sentence of ignominy with no early parole. There is little point in pursuing her further.

Liz Truss faces a life sentence of ignominy (Picture: Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)

The ludicrous mismatch between ability and ambition which she personified should act as a warning for political generations to come. So too will this irrefutable case study in how a reckless economic experiment leaves years of devastation in its wake.

While these are Ms Truss’s memorials, the people who put her there for their own ends are still very much with us and it is to them the focus should turn. They cannot be allowed to move seamlessly from one folly to the next.

Every Tory MP and hanger-on who backed her, every money-bags in search of ermine, every Tory hack who imagined the second coming of Thatcher… these are villains still at large. “At Last, A Real Tory Budget” screamed the Daily Mail in a headline that should be turned into a poster for posterity.

The sight of Jeremy Hunt beside Truss at Prime Minister’s Questions, cheering and sneering; or the awful Grant Shapps turning up as Home Secretary; or Suella Braverman’s five minutes of fame… such images will remind voters that while the head has been removed, the same body is squirming for survival.

As Tory MPs scramble to find their next saviour, let it not be forgotten that 115 of these dolts and cynics voted to put Ms Truss into the final run-off, in the near certain knowledge she would win; mainly motivated by the ambition to stop someone else. Now the same people are at it again.

There should, of course, be a general election. To change leaders once in mid-term is normal but twice is unprecedented. There should be a safeguard against this abuse of a majority, held together by fear of electoral slaughter. For the time being there isn’t so the prosecution cannot rest for a single minute.

I doubt if what has happened will be forgiven or forgotten, no matter how they shuffle the pack. The indisputable fact is that the Tories have collective responsibility for putting Truss and Kwarteng into these positions and none of them, even the innocent, will escape judgement.

The notion of bringing back Johnson confirms their desperation and contempt. He was responsible for much of the mayhem leading to the meltdown we are witnessing. He drove sane voices out of the Tory Party, leaving the field clear for the current freak show. Johnson’s behaviour as Prime Minister was as predictable as the downfall of Truss, and nothing will change if they get him back.

Once upon a time, the Tories traded on economic responsibility. It was a form of deference for a substantial part of the electorate to believe that people with money are best qualified to understand money, even if they didn’t like sharing it. That is now gone. “Vote Tory for economic stability” is, for the foreseeable future, a slogan guaranteed to provoke mockery or anger.

Even more damaging to their traditional vote is the way Britain has been turned into a laughing stock at a time of danger in the world. Ms Truss was a joke as Foreign Secretary which should itself have been enough of a warning sign. Every autocrat in the world is now revelling in the chaos of our democracy – and it is a Tory government which has given them the chance.

Sadly, events at Westminster distracted attention from the SNP’s own recipe for economic chaos, which is mercifully hypothetical rather than urgent. What their political opponents had to say was less significant than the deafening silence from the usual client cheerleaders in academia or quangocracy.

Certainly, I could not improve on the coruscating analysis by Robin McAlpine, founder of the pro-independence Common Weal, who summarised his view of this latest independence document succinctly as “utter pish”. I think we can rest assured that a year from now, Scotland would not be minded to endorse “utter pish” as an economic future. We have had quite enough of that.