The Prime Minister told GMTC this morning that the long-awaited Pre-Budget Report could be expected “in the next couple of days”. Downing Street spent the weekend briefing journalists that middle-class tax cuts and benefits would reach into the billions.

"What I'm determined to do is get all countries around the world trying to get their economies moving again,” the Prime Minister told presenters. “And one way you can do that is by putting more money into the economy by tax cuts or public spending rises but that's something we have got to look at in the next few weeks."

Pressured by the suggestion that help was needed immediately, not in a couple of week, Brown said the PBR would be delivered in the next few days.

Sources speaking to the Daily Telegraph said Gordon Brown was intending to buy his way out of recession, taking on massive borrowing to fund a decreased tax take and keep public spending high. Increased reliance on the much-loathed tax credits system, which has already lost billions of pounds to fraud and error, has been widely tipped by Westminster insiders. Fuel relief for the elderly is also thought to be a no-brainer.

Treasury officials have been busy costing what tax reductions might cost the revenue, including a 1p cut in income tax (£4.2 billion) and the abolition of stamp duty (£6 billion). Reductions in VAT and fuel duty are also being considered. On Sunday, Douglas McWilliams, the chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) made an open plea that only an immediate 5% cut in VAT could stave off the worst of the coming downturn.