UK inflation hits 40-year high (15)

London, May 18 (Petra) - British inflation surged last month to its highest annual rate since 1982, pressuring finance minister Rishi Sunak to offer more help for households and the Bank of England to keep raising interest rates despite a risk of recession. Consumer price inflation hit 9% in April, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, surpassing the peaks of the early 1990s recession that many Britons remember for sky-high interest rates and