Who dares ask how far Brexit is to blame for UK inflation?

After the Jubilee dream of a lovely lost Britain, back to reality with a face-slap: the reality of the £8 pint of beer, the £8-plus gallon of diesel and the death throes of a Downing Street regime that has no discernible answers to the cost-of-living crisis. All of which takes me back to some questions I’ve been pondering for a while: whether the UK faces higher inflation and a deeper downturn than the rest of the western world, if so why, and who we should blame.

By way of caveat, let’s recall the shifting pattern of Covid statistics over time: just because the UK topped April’s G7 inflation table – at 9 per cent, ahead of 8.3 per cent in the US and 7.4 per cent in Germany – doesn’t mean we’ll still look worst when this is all over. But let’s briskly examine the contributing factors.

On energy prices, we share vulnerability with most of Europe, though our government has done less than others to cap prices and cut fuel taxes.