Bold action needed now on energy bills, says Alistair Darling

Chancellor during 2008 banking collapse says fiddling around with small measures' will not be enough

• Politics live: latest updates

Ministers must act immediately on soaring energy prices to avoid people being hit with a lethal cocktail" of high inflation and recession, Alistair Darling, the Labour chancellor during the 2008 banking collapse, has said.

With Liz Truss, the expected successor to Boris Johnson, still refusing to set out what additional help she could give households to pay bills, Darling said a key lesson from the 2008 crash was that action needed to be swift and radical.