The Tories may need more than economic growth to change their fortunes

Editorial: As the government scrambles to clean up its own economic mess, voters are unlikely to feel much better off by the time of the election

Jeremy Hunt’s main purpose in his interviews on Sunday was to draw dividing lines with Labour ahead of the election (PA)

It was revealing that Jeremy Hunt was put forward by the government for the Sunday political shows on TV – unusually, only three weeks after his last Sunday media round on the eve of his Budget.

The chancellor’s latest appearance was a tacit admission that his package, including a two-percentage-point cut in national insurance contributions, has failed to move the political dial – to the frustration of the Conservative MPs who are starting to fear that nothing will dent Labour’s 20-point lead in the opinion polls.

True, Mr Hunt wanted the opportunity to bask in the brighter economic news since his Budget – a sharp drop in inflation and a return to limited economic growth which should soon bring the UK’s recession to an end. Ministers hope that wages outpacing inflation will generate a “feelgood factor”, and that the Bank of England will soon start to bring down interest rates so mortgage rates fall, undoing some of the damage from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget.