Pre-Budget Report next week

The Chancellor will deliver the Pre-Budget Report next Tuesday (9 October 2007). Speculation is rife that there is a General Election on the cards. If so, the Report will be all the more interesting for what it leaves out, rather than what it says.

Gordon Brown may have handed over nominal control of the Treasury to Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, but only the very naive would assume that the latter has any real control over what goes into the Pre-Budget Report.