Speculation over the contents of next month’s Budget has reached fever pitch, and it’s only going to ramp up from here. This is not idle curiosity; with businesses still adapting to the confidence-sapping and job-smothering fallout from last year’s Budget, there is now a genuine fear that what remains of our economic resilience could be crushed by the government’s need to fill an almighty black hole in the public finances.

A new report by economists at Barclays and the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out that while Rachel Reeves is busy blaming Brexit, Liz Truss and “austerity” for today’s mess, the situation is in fact largely “of her own making.”

Yesterday, Reeves conceded for the first time that tax rises are on the cards (making her look like the last person to realise)

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