Jeremy Hunt insisted prioritising tackling inflation was the “right thing to do” after the UK slid into a recession. “We always expected growth to be weaker while we prioritised tackling inflation, that means higher interest rates, and that is the right thing to do because you can’t have long-term healthy growth with high inflation,” the Chancellor said today (Thursday). Mr Hunt continued: “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. “If we stick to our guns, independent forecasters say that by the early summer, we could start to see interest rates falling and that will be a very important relief for families with mortgages.”