With the budget just days away, Rachel Reeves is facing yet another black hole in the public finances - after ditching plans to raise income tax, it’s been widely reported that the government will go for a “smorgasboard” of tax rises and spending cuts to plug the gap, but critics on the left and right say it won’t address the deeper structural rot in Britain’s economy.

So on this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by two economists with radically different visions for how to turn the country around.

James Meadway, host of the Macrodose podcast and former economic adviser to John McDonnell, argues inequality is choking growth and that only a major reset of wealth, investment and a green industrial strategy can revive the UK.

Catherine McBride served on the last government’s Trade and Agricultural Commission and she thinks the real problem is over-regulation, high taxes and net-zero.

And Channel 4 News’ economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi also joined the pod to cut through the political noise - and test whether any of their ideas actually add up.

US and Russian officials have drafted new proposals to end the Ukraine war but they would appear to require major concessions from President Zelenskyy over territory and weapons. Will they be acceptable to the Ukrainian President, and what about his forces fighting on the frontline?

On this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei speaks to the award-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov who has a new film just out that follows a brigade of soldiers as they attempt to liberate the village of Andriivka in the east of the country, the sort of place that would be included in the new Russian-controlled territory.

The NHS is facing one of its deepest crises - a string of maternity scandals, from Shrewsbury to Nottingham, Oxford to Leeds. Hundreds of babies have died or been left severely injured in hospitals meant to keep them safe.

So why does this keep happening? Is it about funding, training, or a system that protects itself instead of patients?On this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru Murthy is joined by Jeremy Hunt MP, who was the Health Secretary between 2012 and 2018; Channel 4 News Health and Social Care Editor Victoria Macdonald who recently reported on a maternity scandal at Oxford University Hospitals. The Trust there has apologised to families and said it was committed to learning from mistakes; and Kayleigh Griffiths, whose daughter Pippa died in 2016 due to failings in care by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

Her investigation alongside another bereaved mother Rhiannon Davies into failings at the Trust led to Jeremy Hunt commissioning the Ockenden Review into improving maternity services across the country.

Griffiths has also been critical of the health watchdog - the Care Quality Commission saying its oversight of maternity services was 'not fit for purpose.'

The CQC said her complaints were being taken seriously and it was engaging with families directly.