What is Brown hoping to achieve?

The answer, of course, is re-election, or he faces virtual political oblivion because of failure.

What does he hope to achieve immediately?

He clearly needs some glimmer of recovery, which could be as little as the rate of increase of unemployment, re-possessions, or bankruptcies showing signs of diminishing. It could be very little indeed, "Unemployment increased by only 5,000 this month, so our policies are working."

You can imagine the Labour spin department switching from smearing the Tories to building a skyscraper on any small scrap of positive evidence.

So my guess is that he will be prepared for a June 4th, 2009 election, with the fall back for an autumn election. He will also be watching the opinion polls in the mean time. It is possible that if any rays of hope emerge before the end of 2008 he could even pencil in an election in the spring of next year.

How soon could we see the green shoots of a real or false new dawn?

Given the plans for staff reduction and mortgage and other arrears, much are already in the pipe line., not soon. There may be others not already firm, as lenders and companies wait until after the Christmas period to see if there is relent in the gloom.

If this scenario is right, then the following will probably happen.

1) He has dropped enough hints to suggest this his aim is to put money into the hands of poorer members of society, and possibly pensioners, before Christmas, in the belief that they will spend it all soon. It is unlikely to be by raising the tax threshold, as this will benefit all taxpayers and he will have to recoup this somewhere else, say by reducing the threshold at which the 40% rate kicks in. The problem here is that all those paying merely at standard rate, and there are still millions, will all benefit.

In the case of pensioners, some of them pay significant amounts of tax, so many would be better off but will not spend the money, which is his objective. The same applies to the (much easier and cheaper) change to the £10 Christmas bonus or the heating allowance.

He has a fondness for his own creatures such as pension or family credit. The trouble with these is that it would be difficult to overcome the slow grinding bureaucracy, and the money could well not be spent before Christmas, and many who would qualify do not claim either because of previous experience or natural pride.

Would he dare to pay welfare recipients a lump sum, with the warning that minute examination of their situations might require repayment? This is unlikely, partly because recipients might hang on to the money until it has been validated, and partly because repayments cause annoyance in a period leading up to an election.

2) Despite earlier talk 0f bringing forward large infrastructure projects, and Boris speaking of doing something similar in London, I would be surprised if much happened in this direction. They are slow to get off the ground, employ workers and disperse income. These could be more useful to achieve something late in 2009 and on into 2010, at the earliest.

He needs urgent, quick results to his policies, and these massive schemes would be delayed, and might not be of much benefit to his election hopes in 2010, even.

So what can we expect in the Pre-Budget Report on Monday? Darling knows that as a result of attacking past Tory policy prescriptions with the words "unfunded" or "can't be afforded", anything he proposes will be minutely examined, and he must show how the massive hike to borrowing will be re-paid.

As he wishes to get extra spending before Christmas, for presents and the sales afterwards, Brown/Darling will suggest only changes which are subject to ministerial adjustment and not debate in parliament, as the latter would eat into precious time. This would seem to rule out anything startlingly new. So expect increases in the various allowances, - pension, family, job-seekers, invalidity benefit, etc. But, then what do I know