I think it’s fair to say that the country is facing some ‘challenges’ at the moment and all the signs are that it’s going to get worse.

It feels like you need to take out a second mortgage to fill up your car, and while the overall inflation rate is around 10 per cent, the reality for those shopping for food essentials is the true inflation rate is somewhere in excess of 20 per cent.

And the vast majority of us have October to look forward to. I say 'look forward' but I mean anticipate with absolute dread because October is when Ofgem will announce the new energy price cap.

The price cap increased by a massive 54 per cent April and is predicted to rise again by an eye-watering 65 per cent in October.

According to the latest prediction last month from analysts at Cornwall Insight, the average user will be forking out £3,244 on typical use.

Of course, if you use more, you’ll pay more and I’m hearing stories of some customers whose energy companies are suggesting they may want to increase their direct debits to more than £400 a month to cover an expected bill of around £5,000 a year.

All I can say is start hoping for a mild winter.

Yes, I know the government helped out a bit with the £150 council tax rebate and the £400 discount off energy bills over winter. And pensioners and those on certain benefits will get an extra cost of living payment.

But to be honest, while any help is welcomed, these increased payments were designed with the April increase in mind in the hope the price of energy would go down before winter.

Of course, the war in Ukraine has put paid to that.

I fully realise that a lot of the causes of our current predicament are out of the control of any government but what we need to feel is some kind of sense that our government is taking it seriously, that we have leaders who are on our side and are doing their best.

We need direction and hope for the future.

But what have we actually got? Well it looks like we have in Boris Johnson a caretaker prime minister who instead of taking control as prices soar and more and more workers go on strike seems more interested in ticking off items from his bucket list.

Playing soldiers and throwing grenades. Tick.

Having a lavish party in the Cotswolds at the home of a rich friend. Tick.

Going for a ride in an RAF Typhoon jet. Tick.

Of course he will be out of No 10 by early September to be replaced by either former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak or current foreign secretary Liz Truss so it is to them we have to look for guidance, for some indication of how they will deal with a cost of living crisis, a crisis that isn’t theoretical but is very real for millions of people.

Now both of the candidates for the top job have had plenty of opportunity to tell us how they are going to fix the problem. We’ve had innumerable television debates with more to come.

So what’s the plan? Well your guess is as good as mine.

I can tell you what Sunak’s stance is on trans issues is: “The fact that we have to have a conversation about what a woman is is quite frankly extraordinary. As a parent of two young girls and married to one, I know exactly what a woman is. We don’t need to have a debate about it.”

I can tell you what Truss’s stance is on defence describing herself as a ‘freedom fighter’ on Ukraine, telling Conservative Party members they could trust her to do all she can to ensure Vladimir Putin is defeated.

Sunak wants to fine people who miss GP or hospital appointments £10, Truss has suggested she would lift the ban on creating new grammar schools (Sunak suggested something similar but then rowed back on it).

Truss has announced she will borrow to fund £30 billion worth of tax cuts and would start to implement them ‘from day one’. She would cancel the planned six per cent rise in corporation tax and reverse the National Insurance hike that came into force in April. She would also lift green levies on energy bills for two years.

Sunak had previously been resisting calls for immediate tax cuts instead saying the nation needs ‘honesty and responsibility, not fairytales’. He had pledged to focus on getting inflation under control and only cut taxes once that happens.

And this is what happens when the two candidates announce policies designed to sway the 150,000 or so mainly southern-based, mainly elderly, mainly white, mainly male Conservative Party voters who will decide who our next prime minister will be.

Sunak and Truss are so wrapped up in their blue-on-blue battle for power, the rest of us are simply being ignored. And that will be of little consolation when your gas and electricity bill lands on the doormat in November.