Alistair Darling, the chancellor, denies suggestions that he has been dithering over the content of today’s pre-Budget report, insisting he always said he would deliver it in the autumn. “There are still leaves on the trees,” he says. Only just.

The chancellor has decided to take time to get it right. The intensifying recession makes this perhaps the most important financial statement since the last downturn, in the early 1990s.