So, the Remoaners have at last got a piece of economic news they can try to crow about – the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose last month from 0.9 per cent to 1.2 per cent, sparking a round of ‘I told you so’s’ on Twitter – one even describes it as a ‘cost of living crisis’. One suspects he wasn’t around in 1975 – incidentally the year that Britain voted to stay in what was then the Common Market – when inflation topped out 26 per cent.
Except the CPI figures don’t really tell you what the Remain lobby wants to tell us at all. Remember how a few weeks ago the Marmite crisis was interpreted as a grim warning of what was to come as the sinking pound inflated food prices? Actually, food prices fell last month. Whatever inflationary pressures have been put upon supermarkets as a result of a lower pound, they have been counter-acted by deflationary pressures.
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