Perhaps Rachel Reeves should start her speech from the Commons dispatch box by advising those brave enough watching or listening to pop a couple of paracetamol​ before she starts speaking.

But the upshot is really nothing new, it’s just a lot worse this time.

The hallmark of every Labour government in living memory has been an addiction to shelling out taxpayers’ cash – borrowing more and taxing more to fund it.

And on Ms Reeves’s watch the bulk of lavish spending has been on public sector pay, unsustainable benefits handouts (the Government jettisoned its £5 billion welfare savings package announced in the spring after a backbench backlash), and mounting debt interest.

Just look at the figures. And weep.

The public sector borrowed £116.8 billion in the seven months to October – a whole £9.9 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated back in March.

It is little wonder why everyone from frightened families to pensioners, small business owners to policy wonks, can see what’s rattling down the line.

Few put it better than Julian Jessop, one of Britain’s most respected economists, who not only has a brain the size of Kent but conveniently speaks fluent human.

His pre-Budget assessment takes aim at reckless spending to which Labour is historically wedded and for which the rest of us will ultimately pay through higher taxes.

Ms Reeves is looking to plug a £30 billion black hole with £20 billion likely to come from a series of tax hikes including ramping up council tax on high-worth homes and nanny state sin taxes on gambling and food and drink.

These moves, Mr Jessop predicts, are likely to amount to a “dog’s breakfast” which will probably backfire.

And in keeping with the depressingly familiar thread of her run at the Treasury, he prophesied: “This year’s Budget is set to be just as painful as the last.”

Happy Christmas indeed.

Last week Andy Haldane, the former top economist at the Bank of England, said agonising speculation surrounding Ms Reeves’s fiscal fandango – a promise of no tax rises only for that pledge to be abandoned – had “without any shadow of a doubt” seen a direct impact on growth.

In a hammer blow to millions, the annual Cash ISA tax-free allowance is set to be slashed from £20,000 to £12,000 in another example of the sensible and hard-working being punished so eye-popping welfare handouts, including plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap, can be financed. It amounts to a tax raid on saving.

Rail fares are set to be frozen – and so they should – but taxpayers will have to foot the bill with rate rises, while 27 MPs have signed a letter warning the Chancellor that moves to force motorists off the roads by hiking fuel duty “will not save the planet or generate more income for the Treasury”.

Amid mounting speculation the deeply unpopular (and grossly unfair) forecourt tax is set to be ramped up to generate a short-term financial boost, Ms Reeves was reminded that fuel duty has remained frozen for the past 14 years and is now 6p less when Labour was last in power and, when in opposition, her party consistently supported keeping it down.

The Chancellor has been warned – repeatedly – that months of fear over what eventually transpires tomorrow has seen households and businesses pull the handbrake on spending in a collective move that has “taken the legs from beneath growth in the economy”.

Experts have pointed out that Ms Reeves has created much of the mess by failing to arrest Labour’s alarming spending – an issue she will try to resolve by further increasing the tax burden.

It all paints a particularly bleak picture and, in a little over 24 hours, it might be less of a dog’s breakfast that Ms Reeves has served up and more like stirring a hornet’s nest.