The only way to prepare for a Budget is to head out into the park for a run. At 0900 I was at my desk, trawling through the papers and digesting all the leaks on what the Chancellor was going to announce. After dealing with routine matters, I headed to the Chamber at 1125 in time for Prayers. Starmer did not perform well at PMQs. Just after 1230, Jeremy Hunt stood up and spoke for about 67 minutes. His presentation style is a soothing one, leading to a calmer session than I'd experienced in the past. The devil is always in the detail, but there was a lot of support for the less well off, policies to get people back to work and to help those with disabilities. Debt was coming down and the expected recession this year would be avoided. More money for charities and fuel duty remained frozen. I did not agree in the rise of Corporation Tax from 19 to 25 per cent. This would be a disincentive, despite the access to some capital allowances. We want to ignite the engine room of our economy, not snuff it out. I support the scrapping of the pensions' allowance. This will ensure the likes of senior doctors and others in the public sector will be incentivised not to retire for fear of paying more tax. This must be good news. Later, I took some senior figures in local newspapers, including the editor of the Dorset Echo, Diarmuid Macdonagh, to meet minister Julia Lopez to lobby for a higher share of government advertising to ensure the survival of the local press. Ironically, I had just written to the same minister of behalf of local BBC radio who are seeing their resources cut as the BBC invests more in digital. We dropped to one line after the Budget statements and I began to draft my speech for tomorrow. Meanwhile, fears that the economy might be on the edge of another “2008-style crisis” caused shares in top European banks to plunge and caused London’s FTSE 100 index to have its worst one-day performance since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And hundreds of thousands of workers were on strike today in what is believed to be the biggest walkout since the current wave of industrial action began.