We are at the stage of the budget cycle where Ministers are promising everything to everybody, because they can’t help themselves. This is the consequence of a budget surplus and populist politics. The risk, as ever, is of frittering away buoyant revenues that will not last forever.

There is a lot of ground to cover before the big day in early October and an unpredictable international backdrop that could still change things. If the Gulf crisis deepens and energy prices head sharply higher again, then there will be intense pressure to react. There is also a threatening stock market bubble ready to pop.

But from what we know – and from a bit of informed guesswork – we can tell a lot already about the budget and what it will mean for the economy and the public.

And the bottom line is that the Coalition is going to struggle to produce a package to remember, by which I mean one that makes a measurable difference to people’s lives, or sets a particular policy direction. In a Government with such fractious working relationships at the top it will, at best, be a series of grudging compromises.

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Promises of “reform” in various areas – childcare, energy costs, tax reform and so on – will largely remain just that. Promises. Programme for government commitments, such as cutting the........

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