It is always illuminating a few weeks before a Budget to witness the outbreak of lobbying by various parts of the public sector for more cash.
Defence is a dab hand at scaring everyone in their beds about how we are now down to a single tank and one platoon; the police say they can no longer handle burglaries due to headcount cuts; teachers warn of portakabin classrooms; prisons are awash with drug-smuggling drones; students want the penal student loan rate reduced; the health sector, the most formidable of all lobbying machines, terrifies ministers with the prospect of a winter of patients lying on trolleys and calls for a few billion more quid.
