IT’S not often that I would recommend taking advice from Jacob Rees-Mogg. His idea of economising likely involves selling one of his Bentleys and refraining from having a seventh child. But so misguided and malevolent is the current Prime Minister that on this occasion I find myself on the side of the Business Secretary, who has been planning a public information campaign about how to cut energy use.

Number 10 contends that there are already many sources of advice on how to reduce bills – which is true, and our own monthly Cut Your Costs page is one of them – but it’s become clear since the cost-of-living crisis began that some stressed-out people are prickly about being offered this kind of advice, and now Truss appears ideologically opposed to giving it.

What’s also clear is that her own misinformation campaign about her government’s energy costs package is having potentially disastrous effects. A carer called in to Radio 4 last week to say that one of his clients had cranked up the heating after the September announcement, believing their total annual bill could not exceed the “cap” of £2500. It’s no accident that people believe this. Truss cares more about making her policy sound good than about clearly communicating what it means in practice.

Apparently the Prime Minister objected to the public information campaign on the grounds that hers is not a “nanny-state government”. Incredibly, we learned this from her climate minister. Yes, her climate minister is “hesitant to tell people what they should do” and concerned that people would take the wrong lessons from “a sort of general ‘use less energy’ message”.

God forbid anyone should safely cut their energy usage for the common good, rather than doing so to get a kickback from their energy supplier. But little wonder the detested Tories cannot get their heads around the concept of anyone being motivated by anything other than naked self-interest.

On the question of whether giving advice makes the UK a “nanny state”, annoyingly I’m again on the side of the man who once went campaigning in Fife with his own nanny in tow. Does Truss have any idea what nannies actually do?

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I’m pretty sure they don’t just suggest to their charges that they might consider brushing their teeth, tasting some vegetables or doing their maths homework (“If a 100W heater is running for an hour and 1kWh of energy costs 21p, how much hot air is generated per minute of media interviews with a panicking PM?”).

A nanny state makes decisions on behalf of the electorate, either by removing choices or curtailing them by means of price increases or other access restrictions. When we face having huge decisions made for us – in the form of power plant shutdowns and consequent blackouts – it’s absurd to think that offering a bit of advice is a step too far.

It now seems Truss has relented, if not quite U-turned, as the existing Help for Households website is to be beefed up. It really does seem as though she’s consistently trying to antagonise her own colleagues by doing the opposite of what any reasonable person would deem appropriate, then flip-flopping. Perhaps she genuinely thinks a top concern of voters is living in her distorted idea of a nanny state, but at this point I would support Mary Poppins for PM if there was any hope of a snap General Election.

She might not have a magic money tree but she does have a bottomless carpet bag and the ability to quite literally parachute into a seat safe accordingly. She would seek broad exemptions to the sugar tax for anything with a conceivable medicinal purpose, and she endorses the feeding of birds, not the starving of bairns.

She wouldn’t dream of telling her friend Bert to go and get a better job – respecting his work-life balance as an enthusiastic participant in the gig economy – and her manifesto commitments include taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of as opposed to leading the country into an economic nightmare.

Where the practically perfect Poppins helps with both tidying up and tucking into bed, Truss and co have threatened the very roofs over many heads by triggering a spike in interest rates, and raided our piggy banks in order to gamble with our futures while trying to bamboozle us about who will end up picking up the tab.

Poppins is a natural diplomat, at ease with those from all walks of life, and is a fluent, confident communicator. She can hold a conversation with a Yorkshire terrier, so despite her clipped tones she is unlikely to he fazed about winning over Red Wall seats, and she is well travelled, so we can be confident she at least knows where the Black Sea is located.

Never one to mince her words, the candidate would doubtless conclude that dizzy Lizzy’s reckless fiscal package was atrocious. Perhaps nanny doesn’t know best, but she certainly couldn’t do any worse.