A whiff of wishful thinking about Hunt’s declaration of economic ‘soft landing’

It’s not quite a Mission Accomplished moment – the equivalent of that day in 2003 when George W Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and prematurely declared the Iraq war was over. But Jeremy Hunt’s declaration in our interview in Washington DC that he had achieved a “soft landing” in the economy certainly has a whiff of wishful thinking about it. Economists spend much of their time dreaming that, following a crisis, or a set of crises, they will be able to engineer a slow glidepath, ensuring there is no painful economic catastrophe. Yet it rarely actually happens. Money latest:…