'Everything rests on the Budget - Rachel Reeves must not hike taxes or risk damaging UK growth'

He has had to explain why his Foreign Secretary needlessly gave away a crucial US/UK naval base, whether the government did intervene in operational policing matters over the Taylor Swift concert where various senior Labour figures had free tickets and why he cancelled the big green investment programme that was part of their offer to the electors.

His Chancellor set out a bleak picture of UK finances and then seemed surprised when consumer confidence and surveys of future business intentions took a turn for the worse.

Everything now rests on the budget. They are briefing that this will be a crucial event, setting the economic course for this Parliament. It has been much anticipated and debated in the long run up to its delivery.

Strangely, the government is holding an important Investment summit on October 14, seeking to attract a lot more investment and enthusiasm for the UK from home and abroad.

They will be unable to answer any of the questions about how much tax people and companies will pay on their future investments as they will be governed by Budget secrecy.

How do they expect people to get very excited about UK investment when they read so many stories that you could be hit by higher taxes on capital gains, profits, savings, pension monies, and by the reduction of offsets for venture capital?

To prove the UK is truly open for business they need to keep the tax reliefs we already have to ensure continuity and stability, and where possible offer some improvements. The UK needs to be tax competitive to attract more investment.

Tax can be very damaging to growth. The government has not only banned new oil and gas investment in new exploration but has also deterred investment in existing fields with its further hike in windfall tax.

It has not only arrested investment in the UK's very successful independent schools sector with its VAT on fees policy, but made it likely there will be school closures and divestments.

By taking the previous government's Tenancy Bill and toughening the actions against landlords, it has persuaded more landlords to sell their properties, making less accommodation available to rent.

Under Conservative and Labour Governments, the UK has decided on a 25 per cent corporation tax rate - allowing Ireland to keep on scooping the pool of US technology investment.

Ireland collects four times as much corporation tax per head as the UK thanks to having am much lower rate which attracts so much more business. These are all anti-growth measures.

The government is right to want to boost the UK growth rate to be the best in G7, as it happily was in the first half of this year as they took over. If you get faster growth people can earn more and spend more, raising their living standards.

As a result they pay more VAT on their purchases and more Income tax on their higher wages, easing pressures on government needing to pay the bills for our public services.

As we grow faster so we can get more people to move off benefits into work, helping them to a better lifestyle and saving the taxpayer the costs of supporting them.

The government says it can do this by a big increase in public and private investment. That's where tax matters. Tax too much and you frighten off the private investment.

The problem with more public investment is it is not always well made or well controlled. The taxpayer had to pay for a very expensive new computer system for the nationalised Post office.

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Instead of it yielding more profit and revenue for the state, it led to big demands for compensation from the staff wrongfully imprisoned by the false accounting of the new computers.

The big plans for a new railway from London to the North resulted in massive delays and cost overruns, wiping out hope of profits. The returns always rested on taking revenues away from other train lines to grab the passengers, likely leaving them in loss with need for more state subsidy.

My message to the government is simple. Go for growth, be ambitious for big rises in productive private sector investment.

Understand low taxes, with swift planning permissions and other permits will bring that much needed boost. Be careful about public sector investment. More of that can go wrong and end up as an embarrassing extra cost.

Putting huge sums into carbon capture is unpopular with many Greens and will not yield good returns for taxpayers.