It was Ronald Reagan who warned that ‘inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man’. Having just worked out that my personal rate of inflation is running at a scary 6.6 per cent, I know exactly what he meant.
A few months ago Britain’s official statisticians began to panic. They had realised that nobody believed their figures any more. With school fees, gas bills and the cost of car insurance soaring, many people — especially pensioners and middle-class consumers — laughed through gritted teeth when told that inflation remained at rock-bottom. In desperation, the number-crunchers decided to launch a personalised inflation calculator by which anybody can work out what is happening to their cost of living; but instead of making the official numbers more credible, it is having the reverse effect.
The calculator is available on the Office for National Statistics’s website and I recommend it to all Spectator readers.
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