Is there anything we don’t know about Hunt’s Autumn Statement?

What does Jeremy Hunt want us to know about the Autumn Statement? The Chancellor is in the final hours of writing the economic announcements for Thursday, and today he had his last Treasury questions in the Commons before he gives his long speech.

Hunt has been rolling the pitch more assiduously than an MCC groundsman over the past few weeks, with endless briefings about black holes, tax rises and unpopular spending cuts. Today, he was talking again about how ‘difficult’ things were going to be. He said:

‘Despite the difficulty of the package I will be announcing, I will sadly not be drinking any whisky as I do so.’

Hunt also insisted that ‘we will approach the difficult situation that we face progressively’ and ‘will ask those who have more to give more’. He told two Tory backbenchers anxious about economic stability that ‘what I talk about on Thursday will include our plan for growth over the next five years as well as our plan for stability’, and that ‘Margaret Thatcher said there is nothing moral about spending money you do not have’.