Some years ago, when I was learning to fly, my instructor played a dirty trick on me. Taking control, he climbed steeply above the South Downs until the aeroplane began to stall and kicked the rudder over.

Suddenly we fell into a spin.

The world flashed around the cockpit as though viewed from the inside of a washing machine at full cycle as we plunged towards the ground.

As I contemplated our imminent destruction, he calmly reduced power, levelled the controls, pushed the rudder in the opposite direction to the spin and gently applied the stick forward.

Having recovered from our dive, he grinned at me, and said: “Not part of the training, but always good to know how to recover if it ever happens to you.”

I vowed never to let it happen to me again.

In case you didn’t notice, newly-installed Tory prime minister Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng did something similar with your pension fund last month. Their reckless mini-budget caused a massive sell off of UK government bonds or ‘gilts.’

This in turn caused panic for Britain’s £1.5 trillion in so-called liability-driven investment funds (LDIs), widely held by pension schemes.

The Bank of England was forced to work through the night to come up with a plan to stabilise the markets and pull us out of the financial spin provoked by Kwarteng’s inexperience at the controls.

If you thought that at least your pension was safe with the Tories, think again.

In these very pages last week, our esteemed representative in the House of Commons, East Hampshire MP Damien Hinds, wrote: “The government’s approach is new and it is certainly bold. In these extraordinary times we do need to reach for extraordinary measures.”

But presumably not deliberately crashing the economy, Damian.

Truss took aim at those who criticise her policies in a bizarre rant of a speech at the Conservative Party conference. The anti-growth coalition, which seems to be just about everyone – including, strangely, people who drive around north London in taxis – “just doesn’t get it because they don’t face the same challenges as normal working people”.

Does she mean rising interest rates, staggering increases in energy prices and inflation? If she does, I’ve got news for her.

The people who ‘don’t get it’ are the tiny minority of 88,000 or so Tory members who elected her as leader of the Conservative Party – the third Tory prime minister in succession elected by the party not at the ballot box (although Johnson was later returned in the 2019 general election).

No surprise the Truss leadership campaign was largely funded by precisely the sort of people unlikely to be affected by her disastrous economic policy.

These included hedge fund managers, venture capitalists and billionaires, among others of similar ilk.

Flying teaches you many things, including the complete unreliability of most of our senses when in the air. Close your eyes for a minute or so and try to keep the plane straight and level.

When you open your eyes, you’ll be astounded to find you’re far from level – your sense of balance has been completely deceived, which is why we have altimeters and artificial horizons.

Flying blind requires careful monitoring of the instruments designed to keep us safe – much like the fiscal measures that governments are meant to consult before embarking on ruinous economic policies.

And another thing – never fly beyond your confidence in your own ability as a pilot.

If the conditions look ominous and you lack experience, don’t get behind the controls –a lesson Truss and Kwarteng evidently have not yet learned.