Healey's Budget needs to sustain the stronger economy through gathering clouds
The economic is positive now but come January things could become trickier for the Labour government
The chancellor's aides are using intelligence-style security measures to guard its secrets: the Budget has been split into "compartments" with very few given access to all of them. There are codenames. The IT has been locked down and ministers viewing the plans have to sign a digital promise not to brief media.
Such security is a response to the feeling that speculation around the last Budget, sometimes informed by insiders, was economically destabilising.
As a recent former defence secretary, Chancellor John Healey has embraced such strict procedures, and has approached most of his public engagements and interviews with a sturdy refusal to break the Budget omertà, akin to his fellow Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott's at times ultra-defensive stance on a cricket pitch.
"The challenge now is to make sure that we balance the books, we manage and control public spending, and the prime minister and I are in lockstep in our determination to meet the fiscal rules with a buffer," he said.