Generations of Tories have hoped for growth. They never plan for it

Jeremy Hunt will be eager for British consumers – the mainstay of the economy for the last decade – to start spending more of their lockdown savings. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Listening to Bank of England officials in recent days, the message is clear: Britain’s economy is in a dire state.

Bombed out by the 2008 banking crash and stunned by the Brexit vote before being poleaxed by Covid-19 and then a war in Ukraine, every industry is suffering, and to a considerable extent. Business tries to drag the economy out of the morass only to find the bog is so deep there is no traction.