The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has warned voters that she will need to make what she described as "necessary choices" to balance the books, in the Budget, three weeks tomorrow. She took the rare step of publicly laying out her thinking at Downing Street - a move that has been widely interpreted as preparing the ground for tax rises. Ms Reeves refused to rule out breaking Labour's manifesto pledge to not increase income tax, VAT or National Insurance. The Conservatives said the Chancellor had delivered a "laundry list of excuses" and did not need to put up taxes.