This will be a big Budget.

Big tax rises, big borrowing, big spending.

And big politically – because it will set the political landscape for the years to come.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will promise that she will “invest, invest, invest” and will tell the Commons: “My belief in Britain burns brighter than ever.

“More pounds in people’s pockets. An NHS that is there when you need it.

“An economy that is growing, creating wealth and opportunity for all.”

Note the upbeat tone, after no shortage of the bleak from ministers recently.

The government is also emphasising that it is “protecting working people’s payslips” – which is code for National Insurance paid by employers, rather than employees, going up – one of the biggest rows of the last few weeks.

Expect Labour to try to use this Budget to attempt to open up a political dividing line with the Conservatives – rather similar to the one Gordon Brown tried a decade and a half ago – where they advocate what they call “investment”, ie spending, and contrast that with what they will label the “decline” offered by the Tories.

Conservative leader Rishi Sunak – on his last big day in the job before his successor is elected on Saturday – will, unsurprisingly, strongly criticise the Chancellor later.

“She’s called National Insurance a ‘jobs tax’ which ‘takes money out of people’s pockets’,” he says.

“And worst of all, she said the problem with National Insurance ‘is that it is a tax purely on people who go to work and those who employ them’.

“Far from protecting working people she would be raising literally the only major tax that specifically hits working people.”

It is expected the Liberal Democrats will focus on social care and the availability of GP and dentist appointments in their response to the Budget.

It is 14 years and seven months since a Labour Chancellor waved the Budget Red Box on the step of 11 Downing Street.

Wednesday 24 March 2010 was the day of Alistair Darling’s third Budget, delivered on the eve of an election campaign Labour would go on to lose.

Incidentally, what was the most expensive measure that day? A promise, costing £600m, to increase the Winter Fuel Allowance for another year.

A Labour idea that would continue throughout the coalition and Conservative years of power, only to be cancelled for the vast majority of pensioners when Labour won again back in July.

For 800 years, men have run the nation’s finances. There have been 110 Chancellors since Sir Richard Sackville was appointed in 1559 – a centuries’ long unbroken line of blokes – which includes Henry Bilson Legge (three times chancellor in the 18th century), and William Gladstone, who had four goes at it in the 19th century.

Until, that is, the appointment of Rachel Reeves.

The Conservatives may have managed the first three female prime ministers, with Labour’s record currently zero, but the first Budget from a female Chancellor of the Exchequer is a genuine moment of history.

So, what can we expect?

Well, the big stuff has been talked up in advance – through nods and winks, official briefings and unauthorised leaks.

There are tax rises, expected to include employer National Insurance and inheritance tax.

There is the change in the government’s self-imposed debt rules, so it can borrow a lot more.

There is the rise in the minimum wage.

There is money to rebuild schools in England.

And the plans for new equipment for the NHS, such as scanners and radiotherapy machines.

Expect a lot of talk from Rachel Reeves about what she will call “choices”.

Her team see it as a “once in a generation” Budget, where its scale, it is claimed, matches the scale of the challenge they face.

Which is code for the country’s in a mess and they think it’s going to cost a lot to fix it.

The extent to which it is – and whether billions of pounds more of taxpayers’ money are the solution – are the open questions.

I used to be part of the art world but I just can’t stomach it any more. Now I’m in prison, and it suits my conscience better. Back in the 1980s, art was my life. Aged 16, I fell head over heels for painting and could imagine nothing better than spending my life working in museums.

Looking back almost 40 years, I see my younger self, starstruck in Paris. I’m staring up with awe at Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and greedily gobbling up the story of how it scandalised the art world. That sickening green cadaver that almost fell out of the frame had me weeping with admiration. Of course it shocked the critics. They hated the grisly truth: the emaciated corpse that was a direct challenge to government corruption and incompetence.

This was a history painting that focused on something scandalous, current and controversial. It exposed the government nepotism and corruption that placed an incompetent captain in charge of a navy frigate that was subsequently shipwrecked. There were insufficient lifeboats, and he and his fellow officers saved themselves, abandoning the lower-class crew to death by murder, cannibalism, starvation.

Géricault thrust this gruesome horror right in front of polite society’s eyes. He starkly showcased the extreme individual suffering that results from political corruption and self-centred individualism. I was bowled over by the realisation that art could be a mechanism to expose horror and greed, that it could stir up the social soup, shock, shake, prod, horrify, question and provoke change. You won’t be remotely surprised to learn that the painting was only fully appreciated after Géricault’s death.

But, as my younger self worked towards building a future among masterpieces such as this, I was not even aware of another brutal and insidious tale of corruption that was unfolding unseen. Fossil-fuel companies were covering up the consequences of the deadly activities that brought them unspeakable profit at the expense of everyone else. They knew unbridled consumption of fossil fuels would cause mass death and devastation to the natural world, but forged ahead regardless while most of us carried on in ignorant bliss.

Working in museums and historic houses for more than 25 years, as a curator, a collections manager, a registrar and a conservation cleaner, it was my job to care for irreplaceable precious things. Sometimes I was accompanying a glamorous be-ruffed Van Dyck to an exhibition. Maybe I was carefully packing a dirty, broken shoe telling the tale of a nameless working woman. I cleaned out gutters and drains to prevent leaks, trained staff to evacuate or protect historical objects in the event of fire or flood, scrutinised temperature and relative humidity readings, adjusted blinds to stop the slightest hint of destructive sunlight, consulted security experts on the latest anti-crime gadgets. My colleagues and I aimed always to manage the natural process of deterioration and do all in our power to slow it down so these objects could be preserved for future generations.

What the hell were we thinking? What a phenomenal waste of time, while the bodies are piling up right now with suffering written all over them, just like Géricualt’s emaciated, shipwrecked corpse.

As I was lovingly protecting these artefacts from deterioration, fossil-fuel executives were violently accelerating the process of destruction of the entire natural world. In league with politicians, financiers and industry leaders, they were busily destroying the very future that I was preserving these things for.

Real flames are licking at your security doors right now and the dirty waters are rising. Do we just pose chatting at exhibition openings as freak, unseasonable weather pushes the stark reality of climate breakdown right in front of our faces? While our gutters are overwhelmed by downpours, while our collections are destroyed by ravenous new species of pests? When climatic conditions around half the world make it too dangerous to live, let alone lend masterpieces to international exhibitions? When flash floods sweep away entire libraries and wildfires raze historic towns to the ground?

Art world, how can you put on exhibitions celebrating the centenary of the suffragettes, then close ranks over some tomato soup? Where are your morals? Where is your true forward-planning? Where is your truth-telling, your revolutionary zeal? Cause a stink, make a rumpus, expose the filth and rotting flesh – just like the artists whose work you care for so beautifully. Be bold, do it now, right now, before your precious collections, careers and private-view canapes are swept away by the tsunami of climate collapse. Listen to those who tell the truth. Use your power as directors of taste and culture to expose the stink of individual pain that is the true cost of international corruption.

I am in prison for taking climate action, for calling out governments and the business leaders who are pushing us towards death. I would rather not be locked up. But if it is a choice between being here for standing up to the destructive forces of the fossil-fuel industry and staying free but wasting time with business as usual and the warped values that place art over life, then I’ll take incarceration any time.

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Chris Packham has reached a settlement with the government over two legal challenges against its decision to remove or delay some environmental policies.

The TV presenter took legal action against the previous Conservative government in late 2023, arguing it acted unlawfully by delaying some policies aimed at helping the UK reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Law firm Leigh Day said Packham had reached “a legal settlement” with the new Labour government that said the Tory administration “had acted unlawfully” by axing or watering down climate policies.

The government said it had settled both cases as it would reconsider the decisions as it updates its carbon budget delivery plan (CBDP).

The CBDP aims to outline how the UK will reach targets set out in the sixth carbon budget, which runs until 2037, as part of wider efforts to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

In 2023, the previous Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that several schemes in the CBDP would be dropped or rolled back – prompting Packham’s legal challenge.

The revised measures included delaying the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035, reducing the phase-out of gas boilers from 100% to 80% by 2035, and scrapping the requirement for energy efficiency upgrades for homes.

At the time, Sunak said the UK’s approach to meeting its net zero target was imposing “unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families”, amid a cost of living crisis exacerbated by higher energy prices.

In May, a High Court judge ruled that the government acted unlawfully by approving the scaled-back CBDP, finding the decision was “simply not justified by the evidence”.

In a statement, Packham described the previous government’s decisions as “reckless and irresponsible short-termism” and said he was “very pleased” that the new government had “pledged to do better”.

The nature presenter and environmentalist will also meet with energy and net zero secretary Ed Miliband “to discuss future progress addressing climate breakdown”, his lawyers said.

A hearing due to take place in November at the High Court will now not go ahead, Leigh Day confirmed.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) spokesman said: “We have carefully considered the two legal cases launched by Chris Packham against the government in November 2023 and May 2024.

“We have now settled both cases, on the basis we reconsider the challenged decisions as part of our work to update our carbon budget delivery plan.”

Rishi Sunak has kept the lowest of public profiles since leaving Downing Street in July. As leader of the opposition, he has made only essential Commons appearances. Although party leader, he barely attended the Conservative conference at all. If he had called the election as late as some assumed he would, Mr Sunak might still be prime minister today. Instead, you could be forgiven for having almost forgotten him.

From this weekend, though, when either Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick will take over, Mr Sunak will become history. His Commons reply to Rachel Reeves’ budget speech on Wednesday is his last important appearance as party leader. After that, who knows? It seems unlikely that Mr Sunak will want to serve in the new shadow cabinet. During the election campaign, he promised he would stay as an MP for a full parliamentary term. Many nevertheless assume, though, that he will quit Westminster much sooner, perhaps for California.

Mr Sunak has had a remarkably brief career at the summit of British politics. He only became an MP for the first time nine years ago, succeeding William Hague in 2015 in the North Yorkshire seat now called Richmond and Northallerton. Three years later he was a junior minister, and a year after that a cabinet minister. In 2020 he was chancellor, and in 2022 prime minister. Still only 44, he is now quietly closing the political door as he leaves altogether, but with perhaps half of his life in front of him.

Mr Sunak’s eventual fate may be as one of Britain’s less celebrated prime ministers. But he should be remembered for three things. One is as Britain’s first ever Hindu prime minister, and our first of Asian heritage. By any standards, this was a formidable achievement, of which he is rightly proud, as this country can also be. The second was his family riches. The third is as the man who led the Tory party to its worst election defeat in parliamentary history, losing 251 seats and being reduced to 121 MPs.

Mr Sunak made mistakes that made the 2024 debacle worse. He had no enthusiasm for either levelling up or decarbonisation. But he also faced an impossible task when he took over in 2022. Boris Johnson’s authority had been destroyed by Partygate, while Liz Truss’s blew up just as she launched. The post-Brexit Tory party was probably unmanageable under any leader, let alone one with minimal room for manoeuvre. Even so, Mr Sunak was probably the party’s least bad option at the time.

The worm in the bud, though, was his deep belief in deregulation and small government, just at a time when the public demanded an end to both. Paradoxically, this belief endured in spite of his own embrace, as chancellor, of increased state spending to protect the economy during Covid and to cap energy price increases caused by the Ukraine war. But Conservative ideological fixation meant that this paved the way for Labour’s victory, not a Tory recovery.

In the end, Mr Sunak is departing for the same reason that his party lost. Neither he nor it had convincing solutions to what their doctrines had actually done to Britain: its ever-growing wealth gulf, its lack of investment and productivity, and its shockingly depleted public realm; the very things that this week’s budget must now address. Like his would-be successors, Mr Sunak offered only the same old same old. He was a historic figure. But he was out of touch with history.

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