Jeremy Hunt should stick to sensible pledges – it’s too late for big moves

Imagine you’re Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, drafting your Autumn Statement for delivery in three weeks’ time. Bookies’ odds for a Tory general election win have moved out to six-to-one (against Labour’s dead-cert one-to-seven) following by-election wipe-outs. The Lib Dems look set to nab your South West Surrey seat if you don’t stand down anyway. And you can’t give your back-benches red-meat tax cuts because public borrowing for this year could run £30 billion higher than forecast.

Releasing the pension ‘triple lock’ to save money would alienate older Tories. Inheritance tax giveaways that might please them would be campaign gold for Labour. A stamp duty cut would do nothing for floating-vote home-buyers facing mortgage costs that will stay high as long as inflation does. In short, there’s nothing splashy you can do to save the government or your own career.

So you might as well do sensible things to help the nation by helping employers face the threat of recession. The Federation of Small Businesses has a shopping list that includes extending business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure; making skills training for the self-employed tax deductible; boosting housebuilding with new brownfield development reliefs; and forcing large firms to pay smaller suppliers quicker. No headline-grabbers, but useful tweaks before you go.

Miracles for slimmers?

‘Could obesity drugs take a bite out of the food industry?’ asks a Morgan Stanley research report, highlighting the startling – and, to some observers, scary – impact of appetite-suppressing medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy. These drugs, we’re told, can reduce calorie intake by 20 to 30 per cent per day, with patients cutting back sharply on ‘high-fat, sweet and salty’ snacks as well as fizzy drinks and booze. So why frightening?

Because Morgan Stanley thinks 24 million Americans could be taking the drugs by 2035, Elon Musk and ‘TikTok influencers’ having enthusiastically endorsed them.