Tough choices for a country already squeezed dry...

LET'S play a game of Who Wants to Plug a £40billion Black Hole? Contestants can choose from three thrilling options: raise income tax (boo), slash welfare or squeeze the dwindling number of people with enough means to flee Britain like bats out of hell. These are the unenviable choices facing Rachel Reeves, and none of them is pretty.

- Esther Krakue

'PADDING OUT THE NUMBERS': Importing cheap labour 'helps hide' GDP crisis

For weeks, journalists have camped outside No 11 trying to sniff out which unlucky group the Chancellor plans to clobber in her first full Budget. There's no need for suspense: taxes will go up. The only questions are by how much and for whom.

Until November 26, we're stuck in an exhaustive existence of waiting to see which economically illiterate policy the Chancellor will trot out to save her own hide. Will it be a mansion tax? A hike in income tax? Or, heaven forbid, welfare cuts? Perhaps she'll tax loo roll next? Thank goodness I recently invested in a bidet.

This is what passes for economic strategy in Britain today: a national guessing game, with everyone hoping no one notices the raffle tickets are worthless.

Reports suggest Reeves is toying with an annual 0.1% levy on homes above £2million. Others say she's mulling a 2p rise in income tax - taking the basic rate from 20% to 22%.

None of it inspires confidence. After 15 years of muddled tinkering, Britain's economy looks less like a plan and more like panic dressed up as policy.