We partied for June’s jubilee, but a winter recession won’t be an easy ride

Data on jobs, prices and sales this week will add to the gloom, but might an inflation-led return to work take the edge off?

Rewind to this time last year and the UK economy was accelerating out of the biggest slump in 300 years. The year-on-year growth rate was 8.7% and there was a sense that the worst of the pandemic was over.

China had reopened its doors to the world and inflation was falling as commodity prices - from copper and oil to wheat and timber - began to tumble.