Prudent Hunt will offer some Budget red meat – but who will benefit?

The chancellor is coming under pressure from his backbenchers over tax, writes James Moore

Jeremy Hunt is preparing a spring Budget (PA)

Will Jeremy Hunt use his fiscal wiggle room to prioritise public services, the economy, or the Tory party in this week’s spring Budget?

Backbench MPs want tax cuts, believing they are an elixir that will magically revive a torpid economy and move Britain from the bottom to the top of the OECD league table.

As religious convictions go, it’s up there with Mormonism’s golden plates that the angel Moroni told Joseph Smith were buried in a hill. Except that believing in golden plates doesn’t hurt anyone. The most recent prophet of freewheeling Thatcherism minus the fiscal responsibility, Liz Truss, harmed millions of Britons before going down in flames.