Rishi Sunak may be trapped between the wings of his own party

As a key budget approaches, the chancellor must resist the urge to please his hawkish admirers, and continue to spend freely

Time is short as the chancellor tries to devise a coherent package for his budget on 3 March. Already it looks like being an impossible task.

In the same way as the Conservative party is at odds over how to tackle the pandemic, it also cannot decide on what direction to take when the vaccine - maybe by as early as the summer - begins to clear the economic fog.

If the Treasury limits its room for manoeuvre and insists on pleasing all sides, then its spending will be incoherent