Will the energy price spike bring down Boris?

What does the new year have in store for consumers — and families trying to make ends meet? A stumbling recovery at best, with a continuing tide of inflation that I predict will swiftly pass the Bank of England’s current forecast of ‘around 6 per cent by spring 2022’ and take much longer to turn than the Bank’s Cnut-like posturing seeks to suggest. And driving that surge will be the energy price spike, which could be the factor — far more potent than endemic sleaze and proven incompetence — that topples the Johnson regime.

Fact: wholesale natural gas prices have quadrupled in the past year. They may drop again in the medium term when the global interplay of demand, supply and geopolitical tension returns to something like its status quo ante; or they may not. In the meantime, barring alternative energy miracles, something has to give.

Either the supply industry, strapped by its regulatory price-cap, goes bust en masse (28 out of its 70 companies having already done so) and has to be nationalised, passing the excess costs to taxpayers.