It’s no surprise Britain’s manufacturers are struggling

Every month, we are bombarded with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), the main inflation measure. It is currently running at 10.5 per cent, and although this is slightly down over the past two months, it is still far, far above the Bank of England’s target of two per cent. But what about inflation for people who are running businesses? The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also publishes a Producer Price Index (PPI) covering inflation for commercial organisations. If you think living costs for consumers are high, count yourself lucky you are not running a factory: the PPI of input prices (i.e. prices of raw materials and other goods) for December has come in at 16.5 per cent. That is down from November (18.0 per cent) and October (20.2 per cent), but way ahead of inflation in the shops. Prices for some categories of goods continued to rise in December, such as metals and non-metallic minerals, which were up 3.2