Of all the arguments, this third one is the weakest.

Even with the emerging cost of living squeeze, it may have been right a month ago. Though if the heat needs taking out of the economy, it would seem to me better that it was done through interest rate increases than fiscal policy.

But in any case, it hardly looks true any longer.

One of the effects of Putin’s war is to considerably worsen an already worrying outlook for both inflation and growth.

The war has put rocket boosters under surging energy, fuel and food prices, such that European and US inflation is going to remain elevated for a lot longer than previously anticipated.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see UK CPI inflation reach double digits.

The Bank of England last month forecast that inflation would peak at 7.25pc by the spring, before subsiding. Predicated as it was on the idea that wholesale energy prices would at least flatten off or fall from here on in, this now looks almost delusionally optimistic.

The consequent inflationary squeeze to disposable incomes will in turn deal a significant blow to growth, still struggling to make a full recovery from traumas of pandemic lockdown strategies.

Given the geopolitical uncertainty, business investment is now unlikely to pick up the slack. Recession in the UK and Europe is now a real possibility.

The problem Sunak faces is this: it’s no longer just increased health spending which is knocking at the Treasury’s door, also making loud, scarcely resistible demands, is defence, and depending on how long the war goes on for, the mother of all refugee crises.