Let’s quickly unpack today’s horrendous inflation figures. According to the Consumer Price Index, food inflation is now a staggering 10.6 percent year-on-year. I had previously predicted double-digit food price inflation by Christmas. But this double-digit rise in the price of food is concealed in today’s headline inflation figures of 3.8 percent CPI and 4.6 percent Retail Price Index – which factor in a 7.5% dip in clothing. In Cabinet today, Brown was expounding on his narrative that this is a global problem. But one of the biggest factors behind this is sterling’s loss of value – 13 percent against a trade-weighted index – which is of the same magnitude as on Black Wednesday. When your currency crashes like that, of course, you’ll notice it at the supermarket checkout.
Even today’s numbers are just the beginning. Yesterday’s factory gate prices, showed inflation of 30 percent and imported foods up 20 percent, this has yet to feed through to shop prices and will do by Christmas.
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