The UK economy is a burning building and the Chancellor is trapped inside. When Reeves took charge, the place was already smouldering. But instead of putting the fire out, she reached for a jerrycan. The consequences were as predictable as they are disastrous.

Growth has stalled, borrowing is surging and taxes are rising fast enough to suck the oxygen out of the room. Her £25billion employer’s national insurance grab alone will have destroyed 375,000 livelihoods by year-end. Businesses are collapsing everywhere we look.

At the same time, she’s being inexorably dragged into a £50billion black hole. That’s partly of the Tory Party’s making, but now mostly hers.

The entire UK economy is caught in a doom loop. It may sound like something from a Marvel movie, but this threat is very real.

The more Reeves taxes, the slower the economy grows. The slower it grows, the more she has to borrow. And the more she borrows, the more tax she needs to raise.

There’s no way out for Reeves. But like every good Hollywood blockbuster, there is a hero waiting in the wings. Ready to save the day.

That man is Bank of England (BoE) governor Andrew Bailey. If that doesn’t fill you with confidence, you’re not alone.

Bailey is hardly central casting’s idea of a crisis-fighting avenger. We’ve seen superstar central bankers before. Mario Draghi, Ben Bernanke, and closer to home, Mark Carney.

By contrast, Bailey barely registers as an NPC.

My teenage son tells me that means “non-playing character” – a computer game figure not controlled by the player. Their actions are pre-programmed and automatic. They may shape the game, but show no real intelligence.

That sounds an awful lot like Bailey. But he’s all we’ve got.

Back in May 2021, Bailey waved away inflation as “transitory”. Then was forced to hike interest rates 14 times to get it under control.

Somehow, he kept his job.

He’s made the opposite mistake ever since, by keeping monetary policy too tight. In July 2023, I wrote that we desperately needed growth, but he was pushing us towards recession.

Today, Bailey continues to crush growth by holding rates too high and reversing the BoE’s money-printing wheeze at precisely the wrong time. For this, we pay him more than £600,000 a year.

Tomorrow, this dozy technocrat has one last chance to save the day. Will he?

Reeves is boxed in on every side. She can’t cut spending because Labour’s left won’t allow it. She can’t break her fiscal rules without tanking the pound. And she’s already seen what happens when she raises taxes – the economy chokes.

Bailey, though, can still use his monetary superpowers and push the BoE’s monetary policy committee into announcing a proper interest rate cut.

Not another timid 0.25 percentage point trim, which would still leave bank rate at 4%. We need bold action – at least 0.5% – to show the BoE finally grasps how urgent things are.

A bigger cut would ease pressure on businesses and consumers. That wouldn’t take superhero strength. Just a sense of reality.

Sadly, Bailey still fears inflation, wage spirals, and losing face – even as jobs vanish and Reeves’s tax raids torch the economy.

The BoE governer could save her. He could save us all. So will he? We’ll find out at midday tomorrow.