The fall in the consumer price index (CPI) was slightly more than expected by most City analysts, who had forecast the annual rate of price rise to ease to 10.9% last month from 11.1% in October. But there is still a chance ministers will be pressured to pay higher wages across the public sector to cover the gap between pay and price rises. Bank of England officials are expected to come under intense pressure to raise interest rates when they meet on Thursday to set the central bank’s key interest rate. The monetary policy committee is expected to raise the key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 3.5%. Ahead of the data, Jeremy Hunt said he expected the UK’s economic situation to get worse before it started to improve. More details soon…
