The Budget had better be good. An elaborate rescue package is required, not just for the country but for Keir Starmer.

Eye-catching measures symbolic of real change must flow from Rachel Reeves at the despatch box or else Labour’s project is seriously at risk.

Cash: that’s what the government needs, but how to get it? This question has pushed the idea of a wealth tax to the top of the agenda, against a backdrop of wealth disparities that would have seemed obscene even in Victorian Britain.

A wealth tax is treated by some as a left-wing virility test, and a willingness to impose one proof that a leader is a worthy custodian of Harold Wilson’s sacred “moral crusade”. The more punitive the better, some would have it, in protest at the guarding of riches by one class while another scrimps and shivers.

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But others take a more moderate, goal-focused approach. Greenpeace has a proposal for Labour to introduce a temporary 2.5 per cent tax for five years on individual wealth over £10 million. According to King’s College London economists, it would raise at least £130 billion which would fund the insulation of all poorly insulated homes, the training of three million people for jobs in the green economy and lower public transport costs. And taking that small percentage of wealth would apparently barely impede the ability of the taxpayers concerned........

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