The twelve month CPIH, the government’s preferred inflation measure, rose 2.7% in the year to August 2017. “The largest contribution to the 12 month rate is housing….electricity prices and Council tax” (0.6%) followed by transport at 0.4%. In the latest month clothing prices have risen. The narrower CPI rose 2.9%.
Overall shop prices were down 0.3% in the year to August, showing that competition kept prices down, and the currency effect on import prices was not as many forecast.
September 12, 2017
As housing is the biggest item it is clear the BoE should now raise interest rates to meet their 2% inflation target, it would immediately impact the cost of housing.
September 13, 2017
The BoE only lowered base rate to 0.25% from 0.5% as a ruse to protect Mark Carney’s blinkered Remain doom story. It was the wrong move at the wrong time, and not based on the real economics.
September 12, 2017
Yes but as a people we are much the poorer, wages are holding the same with no pay increases for years and more people are being forced into low wage zero type contract situations where they cannot plan for the future and add to that the currency devaluation against other money..it’s not good at the moment for most people.. part of the problem driving all of this is the uncertainty surrounding the brexit business. Business finds it hard to plan ahead as well.
September 12, 2017
I heard the whole of the world at one today by chance. A 45 minute programme of which a full 25 minutes was devoted to a paean to Sir Peter Hall, the arts director who has just died. Why? Presumably because he was a powerful advocate for public subsidies as well as a distinguished figure in the performing arts. Leftist (admittedly good) playwrite Sir David Hare got a platform to attack Margaret Thatcher. Sir Peter was a distinguished figure and his death and life’s work are worthy of reporting. But a full 25 minutes of a 45 minute programme is absurd, and demonstrates the ludicrous distortion of the news agenda which the BBC now subjects us to.
September 13, 2017
one of several reasons why I discontinued paying for a TV Licence. The sooner this anachronistic tax is abolished, the better.
Once the gold plated guarantee of billions in funding is removed, the corporation will be forced out into the real world where real people live.
September 13, 2017
Well done, Bob. I don’t pay the BBC TV Tax either. The BBC seems to think that lots of us are cheating. The reality is I don’t actually want to watch the BBC (and I hardly bother with BBC radio either).
September 12, 2017
Sulk. This Week is coming back on the BBC screen. It got episodically worse. I’m addicted to politics and economics programmes. But hey man This Week is really bad weed.
September 12, 2017
Prices are down for me. I timely shop online avoiding delivery charges, saving petrol or taxi costs. I do not buy at discount stores much. An error. Much of the stuff is identical to main stores but packaged and labelled differently. Not much diversity, if any, in wholesale food. I could save more but would need better than public transport to bring it all back. It costs. My gas and electricity expensive Provider will get a shock when I change. I await the government’s never ending think-about-it Cap, before switching.
September 12, 2017
You know there is something major wrong with the global economy when a new phone being watertight and dust-proof and costing over $700 and 80% of the world potential buyers already own the previous version (last years!) is the general business world’s headline for the month.
September 12, 2017
But with wage pressure now being encouraged by the public sector, one has to wonder why the BoE continues down its futile path.
September 12, 2017
Can’t really worry about inflation when asset prices aren’t included. The CPI can almost be fiddled. Now that QE has stopped perhaps we can get back to a more balanced lending scene.
September 12, 2017
The successful Election Manifesto of the Tory Party should include a scrapping of the TV licence fee with immediate effect and an enforced, policed reduction in all council taxes and refunds in certain locales.
September 12, 2017
A British interviewee on one of our islands in the Hurricane zone: he spoke of the panic. “Even corned beef and spam went flying off the store shelves” £2 to £3 for a tin of this reconstituted processed meat. Small. We do live in separate worlds. While ever there are people who think £2-£3 is beneath them, bloodsucker Corbyn will eat more of us.
September 12, 2017
Michael Winner ate “posh” food. Peasant fare for people in those localities as is caviar..Russian peasant food, cheap as muck. Not properly fermented wine…Champagne…we live in a world of illusion. But Council Tax is too real.
September 13, 2017
The absence of services is more difficult to take than the bill.
So I get charged because I have a bigger house with more bedrooms which uses up more services. Really ? So why is my wheelie bin the same size as everyone else’s ?
The councils are not even doing the basics, ie filling in potholes.
September 12, 2017
Utility bills up because of EU emissions targets.
September 13, 2017
Utility bills up because of madcap energy policy generally. I do wonder whether they will abandon the fiction of the standard bill (where the energy priced magically diminishes yearly to disguise the extent of price increases) when they start forcing electric cars on us all.
September 13, 2017
Isn’t CPIH preferred because it is a smaller basket – that excludes some important items?
September 13, 2017
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160108054445/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/introducing-the-new-cpih-measure-of-consumer-price-inflation/2005-to-2012/index.html
“Introducing the new CPIH measure of Consumer Price Inflation , 2005 to 2012”
September 13, 2017
All of the things you mention are driven by government policy.
It might help to drop the mass immigration and green blob nonsense.
September 13, 2017
@ Bryan Harris
No it is larger. It includes Housing related costs that are not normally included in the CPI calculation.
Some academics argue it is a better gauge of inflation because home ownership is higher in the UK. Other academics argue that the housing component is hard to appreciate and subject to a number of debatable assumptions.
Personally, I would like to know if the reason that Mr Redwood selected it is that not only is CPIH slightly lower than headline CPI, it also makes comparison with the rest of EU27 impossible.
EU Harmonized CPI vs CPI, inflation in the UK is running at twice the rate of the rest of the EU (2.9% vs. 1.5%). Just so you know
Reply I selected it because it has become the new official figure. I am happy to talk about other figures for inflation.
September 13, 2017
Time to review the way in which Councils are required to waste money. There is no good excuse for rising bills, especially while public sector pay has been capped.
September 13, 2017
Mark
Wait until we all get billed for the electric car charging points.
September 13, 2017
Can we please know more about the Labour Parties claim that 7 million people from working families are living in poverty?
How many of these live in each region of the UK?
How many of them are from lone parents and are they evenly distributed around the UK?
When you have equal benefits irrespective over whether a home costs £300pm to rent or £2500 per month to rent how is this taken into account do we deal with net spending levels or gross? Do these spending levels include the housing benefit you pay out because I know people who could not earn what they get in housing and other related benefits in families?
How many of the families are from cultures where Mum doesn’t work at all?
Who are the 30% of women not working in the economy at all, even when the children are at school?
How many of these 7 million families weren’t born here but have emigrated here?