Rachel Reeves will not officially confirm any tax changes until 26 November, but two policy shifts in her second Budget now look inevitable. The first is that the basic rate of income tax is set to rise, breaking Labour’s central manifesto pledge. The second is that the Chancellor will lift the two-child benefit cap, following intense pressure from colleagues. In her two most recent interventions, Reeves all but confirmed both changes. At last week’s press conference said said that ‘each of us must do our bit’, heavily hinting that she will shortly hike taxes for all. Then yesterday, she told the BBC it was not right that children in bigger families were ‘penalised’ through ‘no fault of their own’.

If Reeves scraps the cap in a fortnight, the inevitable question is going to be: how are th

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