Inflation

Today

The Spectator

How many homes in England have air conditioning?

Suit cases Volodymyr Zelensky again failed to wear a suit and tie to a meeting at the White House, in spite of being asked to do so – although Donald Trump did say he looked ‘fabulous’ in his black button-up suit. What did Allied leaders wear to the great conferences in the second world war? — Cairo 1943: Winston Churchill wore a white suit with bow tie; Franklin D. Roosevelt a lounge suit with striped tie; and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek a military uniform. — Tehran 1943: Churchill and Stalin both wore military uniform; Roosevelt wore a pinstriped suit. — Yalta 1945: The photo session was held outside in

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Inflation up, hosepipes off and grants for electric cars

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, agreed with President Emmanuel Macron of France that Britain could return perhaps 50 asylum seekers a week to France and accept in their place the same number of applicants through a regulated system. To celebrate, 573 people arrived that day in England in small boats, bringing the total for the week ending 14 July to 1,387. Moygashel Bonfire Committee in Co. Tyrone defended the placing of an effigy of a small boat with 12 migrants on a bonfire to usher in 12 July. Britain had, it was revealed, offered asylum to thousands of Afghan soldiers and their families caught by the accidental publication

Saturday

Michael Simmons

Why is Britain’s economy so unhealthy?

20 min listen

The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons is joined by the outgoing boss of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson and the CEO of the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice to understand why Britain’s economy is in such a bad place. Given it feels like we are often in a doom loop of discussion about tax rises, does this point to a structural problem with the British economy? And why are the public’s expectations so out of line with the state’s capabilities? Michael, Paul and Ruth talk about whether it’s fair for Labour to claim they’ve been ending austerity, the extent to which the effects of the covid-19 pandemic are still

Wednesday

Oscar Edmondson

Why Rachel Reeves is safe, for now

14 min listen

Foreign affairs are inescapable this week, with the readout from the meeting yesterday between Russian and American diplomats in Saudi Arabia. We understand that Trump told Putin that Ukraine will be part of the next round of peace talks. However, Trump’s shock-and-awe foreign policy continues to deliver significantly more shock than awe, especially after he seemingly blamed Ukraine for starting the war. What is he thinking? Could there be more to Trump’s foreign policy than he is letting on?  Back in the UK, pressure is mounting on Rachel Reeves as more inaccuracies in her CV come to light, and inflation rises to 3 per cent. There have been murmurs that

Saturday

Kate Andrews

Reeves’s worst week so far?

16 min listen

It’s been a tricky week for Rachel Reeves: an onslaught of criticism for the levels of borrowing costs, GDP at 0.1 per cent, and stagflation still gripping the UK economy. Remarkably she has come out of it looking stronger – politically at least. But can she afford to celebrate? The Spectator’s Kate Andrews and data editor Michael Simmons join the podcast to discuss the economy, and go through some of the most striking graphs from The Spectator’sdata hub this week. Produced by Natasha Feroze.

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Rising inflation will make Rachel Reeves’s job harder

12 min listen

New figures have shown that, for the year to November, inflation rose by 2.6%. While unsurprising, how much will this impact the Chancellor’s plans going into the new year? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman about the impact on Labour, especially given their October budget. Also on the podcast: do the WASPI women deserve compensation? The team discuss Liz Kendall’s announcement that Labour will not recompense women who faced pension changes; they also discuss the last PMQs of 2024. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Rising inflation, electric car targets and a tax on flatulent livestock

Home Thousands of farmers protested in Westminster against inheritance tax on farms. Tesco, Amazon, Greggs and 76 other chains belonging to the British Retail Consortium said that costs introduced by October’s Budget ‘will make job losses inevitable and higher prices a certainty’. The annual rate of inflation rose to 2.3 per cent from 1.7 a month earlier. The British economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, but shrank during September; in the second quarter it had grown by 0.5 per cent. Beth, the Queen’s Jack Russell, died. An additional 50,000 pensioners will live in relative poverty next year as a result of cuts to the winter fuel

Wednesday

James Heale

Is Rachel Reeves running out of luck?

11 min listen

An unexpected rise in inflation today takes the rate to higher than the Bank of England’s target, and adds to Rachel Reeves’s worries. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons about the latest figures, and they also discuss the shadow minister Alex Burghart’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Wednesday

Oscar Edmondson

Should Labour ditch the ‘doom and gloom’ narrative?

11 min listen

We have some new inflation figures today. Inflation rose 2.2 per cent in the 12 months to August. This is pretty much in line with the Bank of England’s target and should be good news for Labour, so why do they persist with this doom and gloom narrative?  Elsewhere, Labour’s awkward week has got more awkward with the news that Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, is paid more than him. Surely they could have seen this news story coming?  Oscar Edmondson speaks to Kate Andrews and James Heale. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Wednesday

Oscar Edmondson

Why has the inflation rate gone up again?

11 min listen

We’ve got some news today on the inflation rate, which rose to 2.2 per cent in July, slightly up from the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent, where the rate sat in May and June. It’s the first rate uptick this year – and though widely expected, it will be used to explain why the Bank’s continued hawkish stance, despite starting its rate-cutting process earlier this month. Is this a sign of economic conditions improving? Could it lead the way to interest rate cuts later this year?  Also today, the Treasury its under scrutiny after a Labour donor received a top civil service job. Do we need more

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Supermajorities, falling inflation and rammed cows

Home The electorate mulled over the words of Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary: ‘You don’t want to have somebody receive a supermajority.’ A question that lodged in the election campaign was put by Beth Rigby of Sky News to Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, asking whether he had meant it when he said his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, would make a great prime minister; he replied: ‘I was certain we would lose the 2019 election.’ A few days later, Sir Keir told a phone-in questioner that serving in a Corbyn administration ‘didn’t cross my mind because I didn’t think we would win’. He evaded questions on council tax, taxing pensions

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Sack Andrew Bailey? Let’s look at the case against him

The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, is a loyal and well-intentioned public servant in a role that, by its nature, attracts constant blame and hindsight judgment. Liz Truss is a spectacularly failed 44-day prime minister with a book to sell. So when Truss says Bailey should have been sacked for his part in her downfall –when the Bank intervened to prevent a pension fund crisis after her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s radical mini-Budget of September 2022 – and that he should be sacked anyway for being part of a Keynesian economic Establishment, with the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility, that has delivered nothing but stagnation, my

Wednesday

Max Jeffery

Did Jeremy Hunt reduce inflation?

12 min listen

Inflation has fallen to 3.4 per cent, it was announced this morning. Jeremy Hunt said it was a sign that the government’s economic plan is working. Is he right? Max Jeffery speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Sunday

Phoebe Hennell

Javier Milei’s radical reforms could start to heal Argentina’s economy

Argentina has spent most of its 200-year history in deficit; no other country currently owes the International Monetary Fund a greater sum of money. The new finance minister, who entered government with President Javier Milei earlier this month, has been stark in making the point: ‘Out of the last 123 years, Argentina ran a fiscal deficit in 113… we have come to solve the addiction to fiscal deficits.’  Milei’s government is wasting little time carrying out what it calls ‘shock therapy’. The official value of the peso, Argentina’s currency, has been halved against the US dollar. Why might a government want to weaken its own currency, pushing up the price

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: The Crooked House fire, Liz Truss’s honours and a Commonwealth Games flop

Home The first of about 500 asylum seekers were taken to live on the Bibby Stockholm barge on the Isle of Portland, north of the prison and linked to the mainland by one road. The arrival of 339 migrants by small boat across the Channel at the weekend brought the year’s total to 15,071. The government declared it would increase enforcement action against lawyers who ‘coach illegal migrants to lie’ in making claims. Fines were to be tripled for employers and landlords who allow illegal migrants to work for them (up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach) or rent their properties, the Home Secretary announced. The 18th-century

Tuesday

Kate Andrews

Will Brits feel richer if inflation halves?

The government’s objective to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year seems to be back on track – for now. Last week’s interest rate hike was delivered with an updated inflation forecast from the Bank of England, showing the rate slowing to 4.7 per cent by the end of the year, just below Rishi Sunak’s target. The better-than-expected fall in the headline rate last month has forecasters thinking things are finally moving in the right direction. As Ross Clark reports on Coffee House, Capital Economics is expecting another major fall in the rate next week – down to 6.9 per cent on the year – when July’s figures are released.

Wednesday

Kate Andrews

Home truths: the crushing reality of the mortgage crisis

In December Jeremy Hunt hosted a mortgage summit, attended by lenders and the Financial Conduct Authority, to discuss rate woes. At the time, the numbers were at least moving in the right direction. During Liz Truss’s 49-day premiership, the FCA expected interest rates to rise to 5.5 per cent, an increase which was forecast to put 570,000 people into mortgage payment difficulty. Once Rishi Sunak and Hunt undid Truss’s mini-Budget, things looked calmer: a 4.5 per cent peak was expected, and 356,000 people were due to be in difficulty. Hunt was still struck by the figure. Horribly high, he thought. The Chancellor used the meeting to lay the foundation for

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris locked out, mortgage misery and Titanic submarine search

Home Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, was ritually buried by the House of Commons voting by 354 to seven to approve the Privileges Committee report that found he had lied to parliament about observing coronavirus regulations. He would have been suspended for 90 days had he not left parliament; as it was, his pass to enter the Houses of Parliament was withdrawn. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, having remembered an important long-standing engagement, was among 225 MPs who were absent or abstained. David Warburton, an MP who sat as a Conservative until last year, said he was leaving the House. In the King’s birthday honours, Sir John Bell, Ian

Tuesday

Ross Clark

Brexit could fix inflation

Has food price inflation finally peaked? Figures released by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) this morning reveal that food prices were up 15.4 per cent in the past 12 months, down from 15.7 per cent in the year to April. Last week’s figures from the Office of National Statistics also showed a small fall, from 19.2 per cent in March to 19.1 per cent to April. The BRC’s methodology is different from the ONS’s, not only in that it tends to produce slightly lower figures but that it also runs slightly ahead. The inflation story has subtly changed, from being one led by energy prices to being dominated by food

Alec Marsh

Is it time for the £100 note?

Thanks to the recent spike in inflation, never have indisputable luxuries such as Sharwood’s mango chutney or Anchor butter quite so tested the domestic purse strings. The sad truth is, however, that it’s much worse than you think. Because unlike the watched kettle, the frog of devaluation hasn’t just arrived at a nice simmer, it’s begun to boil over. And mango chutney at £4.10 a jar is but the tip of the iceberg. For the long view consider the BBC’s new drama, Ten Pound Poms, about Brits who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s for the princely sum of a £10 processing fee. These days the closest you’ll get to