On Westminster Bridge on Tuesday demonstrators wearing masks of the big four banks’ CEOs gestured with jeroboams of champagne and sacks of cash. Positive Money, Tax Justice UK, the Fairness Foundation, Equality Trust and others are campaigning for a windfall tax on banks’ accelerating domestic profits. Inflation has yet again raised their takings to record heights for no extra effort, the same inflation that also raises the cost of living.

When oil and gas prices soared in 2022, the Tory government set a 35% energy profits levy. Why not on banks, an equally unavoidable utility, they demand? Naturally British banks fight back. “Our sector underpins investment, business growth and home ownership across the country,” says their lobby group, UK Finance. It will damage their competitiveness with foreign banks. Nonsense, say the campaigners, they would only tax UK retail profits. Banks’ investment in the real economy has been dropping, as they pay growing sums to their shareholders.

The crescendo of pre-budget lobbying is louder than usual: sadly a pro-tax demonstration is reported only in the Morning Star and the Banker, while lobbyists threatening dire consequences from any new tax get good coverage. As every imaginable tax rise is rumoured, the chancellor is bombarded with warnings, the rightwing media venting more than usually at any posited increase.

Gambling is the public’s most popular target. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says a 50% tax could raise £3.2bn. But the industry kick-back has been loud, calling Gordon Brown’s support for the tax rise, “economically reckless”. The betting and gambling council warns 40,000 jobs would go, while Betfred is threatening to close all 1,287 of its outlets. Its lobbying hit a peak this week when its spokesperson told the Commons treasury committee there was “no social ill” at all in gambling.

Everyone knows property taxes are chaotically unjust, but tiptoe towards rebalancing council tax, and defenders of very expensive homes warn of calamity. A suggested tax on mansions worth more than £2m was “shrinking the economy quite dramatically and breeding a stagnant swamp” in the housing market, said a Sotheby’s estate agent. A mansion tax will force thousands of cash-poor, asset-rich pensioners to sell up, protests Knight Frank, though downsizing would probably improve their lives. Ignore estate agents’ warnings of millionaire flight, well debunked by the LSE’s Prof Sam Friedman and by HMRC itself.

Equalising national insurance on earned and unearned income is popular, but has landlords and letting agents up in arms. The rental market will collapse, they say, killing little landlords. Reforming business rates would revive high streets by charging big supermarkets and megastores more, and abolishing rates for local independents to fill empty shops. Good idea. But the supermarkets’ riposte to the chancellor warned they would raise food prices. That’s frightening.

Don’t touch pensions, says the mighty pensions industry opposing speculation that everyone should get the same pension tax relief. Why do basic rate taxpayers get 20% added to their pensions by the state, while 40% and 45% taxpayers get those higher sums? Cutting the equally unwarranted 25% tax-free lump sum is greeted with the same indignation, setting off a 61% increase in pension withdrawals last year. Don’t touch savings either. The tax-free Isa is reportedly under threat of reduction, and so it should be. None but the very wealthy have £20,000 a year to stash away.

The chancellor is besieged by warnings that the slightest tax tweak will result in raising less not more from the wealthy, with any tax rise a dread danger to growth. Lobbyists may sense weakness in a government that has backed down and U-turned before. But listening to the public is no guide either. Dismal polling by Persuasion UK for the IPPR this week shows there is no popular way to raise the kind of money she needs to repair crippled services.

The only taxes people currently back are for the rich, high earners, social media companies – but not “ordinary people”, not pensioners, small businesses, farmers or petrol car drivers. They do want to tax gambling, an exit tax for the fleeing rich, homes worth more than £2m, investments and, of course, banks. YouGov finds strong support for a wealth tax on the rich, and virtually none for Tony Blair’s strange call this week to cut the top tax rate. Taxing “others” will not be enough, yet there’s no support for raising the three big universal taxes. However, note that breaking election pledges matters less than delivering visible improvement in people’s lives.

The chancellor’s dilemma is that the economy needs business to prosper and ordinary taxpayers to thrive and spend, yet tax must be raised from somewhere. Fairness is the more popular pro-tax message, making the wealthy pay more and closing loopholes. But the grim reality is that no pro-tax message beats an anti-tax message. That means the chancellor just has to do what she thinks right. Close her ears to the cacophony of expensive lobbyists, and close her ears to the public too. This government’s contradictory messaging has left it late to rouse public opinion for collective contribution. She can only trust her own judgment as she will be vilified and savaged whatever she does. With her party sitting at 17% in the polls, what’s to lose? There is no popular option, so aim for the long-term good, taking the fairest path.