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Today, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that because of changing international factors and the measures I take, the UK will not now enter a technical

recession this year.

That was the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in the spring budget of last year, delighted that the UK

was not going into recession.

Except we did.

We have.

We are. Today's figures show that the UK economy has now fallen into a recession, GDP falling by 0.3% larger than pretty much anyone had forecast.

The R word recession is scary for everybody, but it's even scarier for politicians, especially

politicians who are staring down the barrel of a general election in six to eight to ten

months' time. With a recession now here, and who knows how long it will last, is it really all over

for the Conservative Party? Welcome to the newsagents.

The Newsagents. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And here is the Chancellor today explaining exactly what's

happened to us. We always expected growth to be weaker while we prioritise tackling inflation. That means higher interest rates. And that's the right thing to us. We always expected growth to be weaker while we prioritise tackling inflation. That means higher

interest rates. And that's the right thing to do because you can't have a long-term healthy

growth with high inflation, but also for families. When there's a cost of living crisis, when the

cost of their weekly shop is going up, their energy bills are much higher. It's the right thing to do.

The underlying picture here is an economy that is more resilient than most people predicted.

Inflation is coming down. Real wages have been going up now for six months.

I'm really struggling to understand what he's actually saying there. Is it right to go into recession?

Has he taken us into recession?

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