This is when the nerds and boffins of Britain's fiscal thinktanks assemble to deliver their snap verdict on the chancellor's decisions.
The moment is more important than ever when, as was certainly the case this time, the budget is a big one.
So what did the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation make of this year's budget?
Well, as you'd probably expect, they both fell short of distilling it into a single soundbite, but in broad terms, they both sounded somewhat positive.
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Yes, there were plenty of big provisos. The head of the IFS, Helen Miller, said Labour have broken their manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance.
The Resolution Foundation argued that if only the chancellor had raised the basic rate of income tax instead of freezing personal allowances, it would have made the tax rise considerably fairer and more progressive.
And that's before one gets into the criticism of some of the other bits and pieces from the red book - the structure of the EV tax, for instance (why doesn't it try to penalise congestion?), or of the mansion tax (why not just overhaul council tax altogether?).
But for the most part, these closely-followed institutions seemed pretty supportive of this year's budget - more so, certainly, than they were last year.
Primarily, that's because while the last budget left only a very thin bit of headroom against Rachel Reeves's fiscal rules, this one was far more cautious, doubling that fiscal insurance policy to just over £21bn.
Yet that headroom is dependent on a couple of important factors. First, that the government will hold to its promises to keep spending growth constrained towards the end of the decade. Second, that it will be able to raise all the tax revenues it's promising in that year.
That, in turn, gets to a deeper issue with the budget. Most of the tough stuff has been put off to the final year of the forecast - namely 2029.
That year, the government will face a squeeze at the very same moment that Britons are all asked to pay more in taxes.
And, critically, that's the very year Labour is due to face a general election. Does it really plan to fight an election off the back of a contracting economy?
Consider, too, that for all the government's promises to get living standards growing this parliament, they are currently only forecast to rise at the slowest rate since the 1950s - save for the pandemic and energy price shock period. The economic backdrop, in other words, is hardly rosy.
Still, for the time being, the chancellor has managed to put together a budget that has bolstered her position both in her party and in her job.
Markets remain relatively sanguine - much more so than after Rachel Reeves's first budget last year - with bond yields lower today than before the event (albeit a little higher than yesterday).
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However, this was a complex budget. And, as with all bits of complex engineering, there remains a distinct possibility of large chunks of the budget failing to work.
But since so much of it isn't due to kick in for a few years, it may take quite a while before we find out which bits work and which, if any, don't.
He worked with "the US government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar" during the US-led war in the country, CIA director John Ratcliffe has said.
The suspect, who has been pictured for the first time, was wounded in an exchange of gunfire before he was arrested.
He was identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.
Attorney general Pam Bondi said the US government plans to bring terrorism charges against the gunman and seek a sentence of life in prison "at a minimum".
"A lone gunman opened fire without provocation, ambush style, armed with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver," she told reporters.
US Attorney for Washington DC Jeanine Pirro identified the two wounded Guard members as Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24.
She said they had been sworn in as National Guard members fewer than 24 hours before the shooting.
Ms Pirro said the suspect ambushed them while they were patrolling near the White House. He shot one Guardsman who fell and then shot again before firing multiple times at the second Guardsman with the Magnum handgun.
Numerous electronic devices seized from suspect's home
The suspect "drove his vehicle cross-country from the state of Washington with the intended target of coming to our nation's capital," Ms Pirro said.
The FBI searched multiple properties in Washington state and San Diego on Thursday in what officials said was a terrorism probe into the DC shooting.
Investigators seized numerous electronic devices from the suspect's house in Washington state, including cellphones, laptops, and iPads, FBI director Kash Patel told a news conference.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to resettle Afghans who assisted the US during the war and feared reprisals from the Taliban after the withdrawal.
An unnamed relative of the suspect has said that Lakanwal served in the Afghan army for 10 years alongside US Special Forces troops and was stationed in Kandahar for part of that time.
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The relative also said Lakanwal was working for online retail giant Amazon.com the last time they spoke several months ago, according to Sky’s US partner NBC News.
A Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity has said that Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on 23 April of this year.
Lakanwal had no known criminal history, the official said.
US President Donald Trump, who was at his resort in Florida at the time of the attack, released a prerecorded video statement late on Wednesday calling the shooting "an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror".
He said his administration would "re-examine" all Afghans who arrived in the US during the presidency of his predecessor, Joe Biden.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency has said it has halted processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely, "pending further review of security and vetting protocols".
In the wake of Wednesday's shooting, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the president requested an additional 500 National Guard troops to bolster the more than 2,000 already deployed in the nation's capital.
In August, Trump ordered the National Guard to the city to combat rising crime, a move that drew objections from District of Columbia officials who argued in court that it violated local authority.
Authorities said nearly 300 people are also missing following the blaze at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po - a suburban district with around 300,000 residents, near the border with mainland China.
At least 83 people died in the fire, according to South China Morning Post, citing the local fire department, and a further 70 people have been injured, including more than 40 who were described as critically ill in hospital on Wednesday night.
Around 900 people are also in shelters as a result of the blaze.
Police have alleged its cause could have been a "grossly negligent" construction firm using unsafe materials.
Three people - two directors and an engineering consultant - have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
"We have reason to believe that the company's responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties," said police superintendent Eileen Chung. Police have not named the company.
The complex, built in the 1980s, had been under renovation for a year.
One firefighter was among those killed tackling the blaze, which broke out at 2.51pm local time on Wednesday. Another 11 firefighters were among those injured.
Fire crews said they had doused the flames in all seven of the affected blocks by Thursday morning, and were searching each floor for survivors.
Records show the Wang Fuk Court site consists of eight blocks, with almost 2,000 flats housing around 4,800 residents, including many elderly people.
Families have been identifying the bodies of relatives while others have been visiting shelters in the area, searching for missing loved ones.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said on Thursday the government will set up a HK$300m (£29m) fund to help residents.
The cause of the fire is being investigated, but it appears to have started in bamboo scaffolding and construction mesh sheets and then spread across seven of the complex's eight buildings - likely aided by windy conditions.
Bamboo scaffolding is commonly used in Hong Kong, but is in the process of being phased out because of safety concerns.
Hong Kong's Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims said there have been at least three fires involving bamboo scaffolding this year.
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China's state broadcaster CCTV said President Xi Jinping has urged an "all-out effort" to extinguish the fire and minimise casualties and losses.
Both the US and British Consulate Generals for Hong Kong have sent condolences to those affected, as has Taiwan's president.
The number of dead is the highest in a Hong Kong fire since 1948, when 176 people were killed in a warehouse blaze.
The fire has prompted comparisons to the Grenfell Tower blaze which killed 72 people in 2017, blamed on flammable cladding, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
"Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong," the Grenfell United survivors' group said on
social media.
"To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone."
Warning: This story contains references to self-harm and suicide
Mia Lucas, who died in January 2024, was found unresponsive at an NHS children's psychiatric unit after developing a rare neurological disorder that had been left undiagnosed.
The jury at Sheffield Coroner's Court heard the girl was found at the Becton Centre, part of Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust.
She had been placed there after being sectioned while suffering an "acute psychotic episode" during an assessment at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.
On Thursday, the jury found that the failure to undertake a lumbar puncture at QMC before her transfer to the Becton Centre "possibly contributed to Mia's death".
A lumbar puncture involves a needle being inserted into your lower back to find out if symptoms are caused by a brain or spine condition.
The jury also said there was a failure at the Becton Centre to respond adequately to Mia's risk of self-harm.
Professor Marta Cohen told the jury Mia's cause of death was "compression of the neck" but she had now added that this was caused by "acute psychosis", which was caused by "autoimmune encephalitis", an inflammation of the brain that can cause extreme psychiatric symptoms and is treatable.
The autoimmune encephalitis diagnosis emerged during the nine-day inquest after a pathologist revealed she had received new post-mortem results.
The revelation prompted shock in the courtroom and tears from Mia's family members in the public gallery.
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The condition was described as "complex and rare", according to consultant paediatric neurologist Mike Taylor.
He added that there was a low level of suspicion Mia had it, while being assessed at QMC, and told the court that experts had to consider the very severe treatment side effects, which included death.
Mia's mother, Chloe Hayes, told Sky News she was unhappy at how the Becton Centre had supervised her daughter.
"All they had to do was watch her. I actually never got told the truth about the attempts that Mia made [to self-harm] until after she died," she said.
"If I'd have known the truth I wouldn't have left Mia there. And I think she had so much to live for. I don't think she knew what she was doing."
In a statement, Mrs Hayes added that she wanted people to know her daughter's extreme behaviour was only evident in the final few weeks of her life.
"For the other 12 years, she was a beautiful soul who loved life and loved her family, and that's how we want her to be remembered," she said, describing Mia as a "happy, fun, friendly girl who had so much to live for."
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. Alternatively, you can call Mind's support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.
The 31-year-old was detained at Manchester Airport on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism after arriving on an inbound flight, police said.
It brings the total number of people arrested in connection with the incident at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue to seven.
Jihad al Shamie launched the attack at the synagogue in Crumpsall on 2 October, driving his car at worshippers gathering on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, before attacking others with a knife and trying to storm inside.
Armed police shot al Shamie after he ran towards officers "aggressively" while carrying a knife and what police feared was an explosive device - later identified as a fake.
Worshippers Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed, with Mr Daulby being described as a "quiet hero" who leapt from his seat to block the doors of the synagogue as it came under attack.
He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired by an armed police officer, while father-of-three Mr Cravitz died from multiple knife wounds inflicted by al Shamie, an inquest at Manchester Coroner's Court heard in October.
The inquests into the deaths of both men have been adjourned until February next year.
Three other men were treated in hospital for serious injuries. Two have since been released, police said on Thursday.
An inquest into the death of al Shamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, heard he was identified by his fingerprints and evidence, including his car, phone and inquiries with his immediate family in the aftermath of the attack.
At the hearing in October, Judge Alexia Durran, the chief coroner of England and Wales, said her provisional findings were that al Shamie died of gunshot wounds.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found no misconduct in the police response.
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In a statement on Thursday, Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, from Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: "The loved ones of Mr Daulby and Mr Cravitz have been updated on this development, as have those who were seriously injured in the attack.
"Our investigation is continuing, and I would once again appeal for anyone with information that they think could assist our enquiries to please come forward."
Police also said a 30-year-old man arrested on 9 October on suspicion of failing to disclose information contrary to S38B of the Terrorism Act 2000 remains on bail.