THE news was predictably grim. The UK’s economic winter of discontent is about to get colder, darker and last longer than anticipated with the chances of Rishi Sunak turning it into glorious summer anytime soon below zero.

The Bank of England, which raised the base rate to 3%, claimed the country was already in recession and facing the longest slump on record, stretching beyond the horizon into 2024 with the prospect of more interest hikes to try to stem rising prices. All of which will push mortgage rates and rents higher still next year. Typically, mortgage-holders refinancing their loans will face a £3,000 rise in their annual repayments.

Given 30 per cent of households have a mortgage and 40% rent, then most people will suffer from the rising cost of keeping a roof over their head. And that’s on top of surging energy, food and transport costs with inflation set to hit a 40-year high of 11% soon.

The record recession is expected to knock 2.9% off the size of the economy, less than half of the 6.3% reduction the 2008 financial crisis caused.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, the Bank Governor, competed for who could deliver the biggest understatement. The former said: “There are no easy options,” while the latter noted: “There’s a tough road ahead.”

If all the economic news were not bad enough, the “permacrisis” that the country has been enduring since the 2008 financial crash will be taking a cumulative toll on our collective mental health. Not least among those in the coming months who will lose their jobs. Unemployment, low at 3.5%, is expected to rise to almost 6.5% by late 2025.

The silver lining to the ginormous dark cloud is the Bank’s prediction that inflation should come down next year “probably quite sharply” to 5.25% and then drop to 1.5% in 2024 while interest rates should peak at 4.5% rather than the previously predicted 6%. Furthermore, while the recession will be long, it will be less than half as deep as that which followed the 2008 financial crisis.

And yet, there are always imponderables such as how long the war in Ukraine will last.

Sadly, the Bank’s bleak base rate announcement and forecasts are only Part One of Britain’s economic horror show, Part Two comes in a fortnight with the Autumn Statement when the Chancellor will present his painful prescription: a mix of tax rises and spending cuts.

Liz Truss’s failed hotch-potch of swingeing tax cuts, higher borrowing and undeliverable boasts of growth, growth, growth seems a lifetime ago, even though the calamitous mini-Budget was only on September 23.

Now, Mr Sunak will be turning his mind to the political art of managing expectations regarding the November 17 fiscal statement.

So, as Matt Hancock, England’s one-time Health Secretary, landed in Australia facing the prospect of eating kangaroo testicles and Boris Johnson partied with supporters, guzzling champagne at a Westminster thank-you bash, the Chancellor was telling business folk at a swish Claridge's Hotel reception that there was “no way of sugar-coating” the fact taxes will have to rise and spending will have to fall.

“It’s going to be a difficult pill for everyone to swallow,” he warned them.

While the Treasury said Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt had agreed on the principle that those with the broadest shoulders should be asked to bear the greatest burden, it warned that “given the enormity of the challenge”, it was “inevitable everybody would need to contribute more in tax in the years ahead”.

With the PM at every turn stressing “fairness and compassion” will underpin his economic approach, it’s hard to see how on the day he will not ensure pensions and benefits will rise with inflation. And at this week’s Cabinet, he stressed that the NHS would be “prioritised”.

Meetings in Whitehall about what options should be chosen to fill the £50bn fiscal black hole are continuous. High on the hit-list is extending windfall taxes on the oil and gas companies to raise an estimated £40 billion over five years and also slapping one on the electricity generating companies. This has the advantage of being popular among voters and would help limit cuts to public spending.

Then there are stealth taxes, beloved of chancellors. Freezing income tax and National Insurance thresholds for several more years to come could bring in £5bn or more a year to the Treasury.

There is also the possibility of reinstating the health and social care levy south of the Border, championed by Mr Sunak as Chancellor, which would raise £15bn by 2026-27.

Mr Hunt is said to be considering a 50/50 split between introducing spending cuts and tax hikes, which would be more balanced than George Osborne’s austerity Budget when he opted for a respective 80/20 split to fill a similar-sized black hole in the finances.

Given the recession is due to last until the summer of 2024, it’s likely we can expect Mr Sunak to go to the country as late as possible, possibly the autumn of that year. But if the economic prospects for the country are grim, the political ones for the Tories look grimmer still.

As top psephologist Professor Sir John Curtice pointed out: “No government that has presided over a financial crisis has eventually survived at the ballot box.”

This weekend, the good folk of Edenbridge in Kent will have their own take on BonfireNight by igniting a 30ft-high effigy of Liz Truss with a laughing lettuce on her shoulder, a reference to how a lettuce outlasted the ex-PM’s 44-day unhappy tenure in Downing St.

Previous public figures who have had the honour of seeing their images being ritually ignited include Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Tony Blair and Saddam Hussein. Come next November, however skilfully Mr Sunak spins his way through the storm, chances are, that his cardboard likeness will go up in flames too.

If so, it will be a bad omen for the Tory Party’s election chances in 2024. Nothing is inevitable in politics, but a Conservative defeat looks like coming pretty close.

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