No. 10 was an endless series of parties. The Chancellor was more interested in socializing than sorting out the economy. And the Prime Minister was imposing rules on everyone else that he cavalierly ignored himself. It remains to be seen whether Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak can survive the fines handed out for breaking the lockdown rules and the public anger over their behaviour. And yet, in reality, there is a far larger lockdown scandal and one that will cause far more lasting political damage: inflation.
The ‘partygate’ scandal, and its fallout, has distracted attention from yet another sobering set of inflation statistics. Today we learned that prices are now rising at an annual rate of 7 per cent, up from 6.2 per cent last month. That is the fastest rate in 30 years and well above the rate at which earnings are going up.
The one economy that did not lockdown like the rest of the world, Sweden, is only seeing a modest uptick in prices
Admittedly, the British rate is still slightly lower than most of the other major economies (it is 8.5
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