ACCOUNTANTS Pricewaterhouse-Coopers has produced its annual race card ahead of today’s Budget speech.

It offers odds of 2-1 on the introduction of a subsidy for trading in an existing old car for a new low CO² emission car, and 3-1 on an increase in ISA investment limits.

They ambitiously offer 100-1 on the rate of duty on Champagne being halved “to cheer everyone up in these difficult times”.

Chief tipster Brian Clark, below, said: “Don't be surprised if, like the Grand National, we see an unfancied outsider coming through in an effort to jump the Becher’s Brook of fiscal imbalance as the Chancellor approaches the finishing post of the speech.”

Sounds like someone’s already been at the bubbly.

IT IS usually the job of a company PR to improve the position of its senior management.

But one of Tesco’s spinmeisters had clearly been upset by Liverpool-born international director Philip Clarke.

Ahead of an early-morning conference call yesterday morning, he set about establishing Mr Clarke’s impeccable regional credentials with a potted version of his biography.

“He started in the Tesco Allerton Road store in 1974 . . . did his degree at Liverpool University . . . went to Turn Coat School.”

At Trading Gossip, we suspect the work of a Manchester United fan who still hasn’t got over the shock of Sunday.

IT IS good to see retailers are being well-protected at Birkenhead’s Pyramid and Grange shopping centres.

Rebellious coffee shop BeOffee had put balloons on its outdoor seating, but the centre’s security quickly came to deflate their marketing extravagance.

Perhaps they were worried caffeine and helium are highly combustible. After all, anyone who has been stuck in the meeting-that-never-ends is well aware of the dangerous combination of caffeine and hot air.