Portrait of the week: record inflation, record NHS waiting lists and the return of Trump

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Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, ‘We’re all going to be paying a bit more tax’ as he polished up his Autumn Statement. ‘The number one challenge we face is inflation,’ said Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister. The annual rate of inflation rose to 11.1 per cent from 10.1 per cent the month before. Regular pay increased by 5.7 per cent in the year to September but its real value fell by 2.7 per cent because of inflation. In a survey of grocery prices, the consumer group Which? found Heinz tomato ketchup had gone up 53 per cent in two years and Anchor spreadable butter by 45 per cent. Unemployment rose a little from 3.5 to 3.6 per cent, but an increase in the economically inactive was largely attributed to the long-term sick, of whom there are now 2.5 million.

The number of migrants arriving in Britain in small craft in 2022 exceeded 40,000. The British government will pay the French an extra £8 million in the hope of controlling the numbers leaving France; few had a lively hope that the plan would have much effect. Numbers testing positive for Covid declined in England to one in 40 by the beginning of November (one in 35 a week earlier) and Scotland to about 1 in 50 (also one in 35 a week earlier), according to the Office for National Statistics. A Bill was introduced to make the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex Counsellors of State to avoid the embarrassment of the Duke of Sussex or the Duke of York having to stand in for the King in his absence.

The NHS would have waiting lists of 8.7 million by March 2024, compared with 7.1 million now, according to a projection by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which found that the service had ‘struggled to increase’ its volumes of treatment above 2019 levels.