Budget 2016: is George Osborne asleep at the wheel of UK's economy?

Jeremy Corbyn has a tough job countering chancellor's budget but openings do exist - on wages, investment and productivity

Jeremy Corbyn has one of the hardest gigs in politics coming up on Wednesday. By tradition the response to the budget comes not from the shadow chancellor but from the leader of the opposition, who has the unenviable task of responding to a package of measures he has not seen and which invariably contains one or two big surprises.

The surprise this time could be some modest tax cuts. George Osborne likes nothing better than to set traps for his political opponents, so Corbyn should be alive to the possibility that the budget will not be nearly as grim an affair as its advance billing has indicated.

Related: George Osborne's November pledges: how far has he got?