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Rachel Reeves’s Budget is still 11 weeks away but speculation has already gone into overdrive – and most of it is a pack of lies.

We are told there is a £50 billion “black hole” in the nation’s finances.

We are told markets are on the brink of punishing the United Kingdom with soaring borrowing costs.

We are told the country might even need a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

It’s all nonsense.

When traders panicked in the summer, it was because they thought it might pitch Reeves out of her job – not because of the UK’s finances. Once it became clear she was staying, borrowing costs fell back again.

By the end of last week, supposedly “alarming” gilt yields were down thanks to weaker-than-expected US jobs data. In other words, the markets were jittery about America, not about us.

So why are we being bombarded with scare stories about Reeves’s Budget?

The answer is obvious: because the establishment is trying to box her in.

The media want to create a mood of crisis to make Reeves feel that she would be unwise to tax the rich fairly. Instead, she is being told she must cut welfare, punish the vulnerable, and repeat the mistakes of austerity.

This game is about inducing Reeves to make the biggest mistake the media can manufacture.

Columnists at The Guardian have already floated ideas like raiding pensions and overhauling council tax.

Think tanks are feeding journalists with “black hole” figures.

Ministers and pundits alike are whispering about tax rises that Reeves has never even (to our knowledge) considered.

All of this noise creates an atmosphere in which ordinary people – especially older and wealthier groups – panic about their savings or their homes.

And if those people panic, Reeves is meant to flinch.

But the real choice facing her is simple:

• She can tax wealth, pensions, and property fairly – asking those with the broadest shoulders to contribute.

• Or she can hit the poor, slash benefits, and betray the people Labour is supposed to protect.

The Budget is not about bond market voodoo.

It is not about imaginary “black holes”.

It is about whether Labour dares to be fair.

So don’t be fooled by the hysteria.

The lies are being pumped out to mislead you – to make you fear reforms that would finally make the wealthy pay their share.

If Reeves caves to this campaign, the poor will pay again.

That is what the media want.

That is what the establishment wants.

The question is: what will Rachel Reeves decide?

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