In a week where political attention was on espionage and anti-Semitism, the cri de coeur from one Treasury official was notable. Recalling how Budgets were made during the years of Gordon Brown, before the 2010 coalition created the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the number-cruncher complained: ‘All they had to do was fiddle their own figures. That was a dream compared with this.’

Earlier this month, Rachel Reeves received the OBR’s first estimate of the state of the public finances, showing the depth of the ‘black hole’. She will shortly get another OBR report on how falling productivity is damaging growth. For every 0.1 per cent productivity growth is downgraded, the Chancellor will lose £9 billion by 2029-30 – the crucial year which determines if Reeves sticks to her fiscal

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