Best and worst jobs right now. The best? Planning the bush tucker trials for my colleague Matt Hancock on ITV’s “I’m a Celebrity…”. The worse? Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Jeremy Hunt has a truly Herculean task ahead of him. This Thursday, he must find money to fill a £50 billion black hole in public finances; he must find a way to stimulate a shrinking economy, predicted to be in recession for some time; he has to help worse off households tackle rising energy prices and mortgage rates. And he must do it whilst the Bank of England is fighting inflation.

He has, however, already achieved a great deal. Because of his swift action, markets are under control and mortgage rates, whilst rising, are not rising faster than other countries.

Inflation is normally the result of a run-away economy. Too much activity and money supply gets out of control, fuelling inflation. Raise interest rates and (under a Keynesian approach) tax a bit more to, as they say, fix the roof whilst the sun’s shining, and everyone is happy. Inflation is controlled and the economy goes back to normal.

But when you have a shrinking economy and high inflation, there is a much bigger problem.

World inflation is being driven by high energy prices (thanks to Vladimir Putin), and a surplus of money in the economy, probably as a result of quantitative easing (central Bank’s way of increasing liquidity when interest rates are very low).

Get inflation under control and the money in your and my pockets keeps its value. Pay rises are reasonable and interest rates stay low. Everyone is happy. But fail to tackle inflation and pay rises are high, fuelling more inflation. Inflation needs to be controlled by hiking interest rates further, so mortgage rates go up. Everyone is poorer.

Let’s not forget that black hole. All these challenges need to be tackled in the context of securing credibility in public finances. Everyone who has ever done any sort of budgeting knows you cannot run a deficit for long.

This is, in the main, a global problem. But it is fair to say that Brexit has interrupted some trade patterns and there is a debate ongoing about the short-term costs to our economy.

Thursday will be a big day for us all. But at least Matt Hancock getting stung by another scorpion may momentarily cheer us all up.