Help with cost of living to make tax smorgasboard easier to swallow

These have been the leakiest, most fevered pre-budget weeks in modern British political history.

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New peaks of political and media hyperbole amplify every successive gloomy prognostication – but beneath the justifiable pessimism lies under-noticed causes for guarded optimism

State of the nation

Yes, there is the familiar litany of concerns about lack of investment and productivity. Too many of the opportunities in science and technology are being surrendered to overseas companies. British investors and pension funds continue to neglect their own backyard. The number of new company flotations has slumped. Brexit is ever more costly.

But Britain is not about to go either bust or become a ward of the IMF, the charge levied by overexcited commentary from the Greens and the right. Even if the debt markets were to balk at the size of Britain's debt service commitments, if necessary the tax revenue can be found to reassure them - however politically painful.

It has fallen to foreigners, outside the introspective declinist national conversation, to see the UK's underlying strengths. Their buying has propelled a rise in the UK stock market by 16% this year - better than either the US or the principal markets in Europe.

Britain has three great economic assets. The first is our capacities in science and technology. We possess two-fifths of the fastest-growing young tech companies in Europe. In tribute to their potential and threat, they are stalked by foreign, mainly American, predators. With the right ecosystem of support, Britain could develop a £1tn tech economy by 2040.

The second is that Britain has created a broad-based, agile and internationally competitive service sector economy. We are the world's second biggest exporter of services, which, coupled with the strength in tech, gives the economy an underlying resilience that has manifested itself this year.