The great inflation after covid lock down is often called the cost of living crisis. It occurred in the UK, the Eurozone and the US where prices peaked at around a 10% annual increase. It did not occur in Japan, in China or in Switzerland where inflation stayed around 2%. In the UK, the US, Germany and others experiencing the high inflation it led to the defeat of the ruling party or executive President. The Uk inflation rate hit 6% before Putin invaded Ukraine and put up energy prices.
The Bank of England, the US Fed and the European Central Bank are all responsible for controlling inflation, each with a 2% target. Each allowed or caused an inflation five times target. Each blamed Putin and the oil price for the overshoot. The fact that 3 big importing countries, Chiba, Japan and Switzerland saw no such effect shows the oil price explanation is wrong. The timing of the inflation rise with some of it before the invasion also pours doubt on their excuse.
The Conservative government that presided over the rise paid the price for the Bank’s mistakes, as it has to in a democracy. After all the government could have modified Bank independence to stop the mistake. The Chancellor could have refused to sign off the last £150 bn of money printing as I suggested at the time. Although it was a Bank decision to print such excessive amounts, from Chancellor Darling onwards the amounts to be printed always needed Chancellor approval and a full indemnity from taxpayers for losses on the bonds they bought.
Despite the obvious errors allowing too much money and credit to be created the Central Banks have largely deflected the blame and have kept support for continued Bank independence. We need to explain the independence only relates to setting the Base rate and making independent forecasts of inflation. Keeping this structure without allowing future errors on the scale of the Great Inflation requires the Bank of England to revise its economic model and forecasting methods to demonstrate it can in future foresee something like the Great inflation, which it failed to recognise until it was well advanced. That will require more diversity of thought on the Monetary Policy Committee, and the incorporation of money and credit more fully into the forecasting models. Those treating money and credit seriously did warn both the Fed and the Bank of England that they were about to allow a big inflation.
An incoming government must show it is on the side of tougher action against inflation, not weaker. It must signal that the Bank needs to take it s duty very seriously to keep inflation down , and needs to strengthen its forecasting and Policy formulation. The UK government itself should also adopt the inflation target of 2% and reflect it in its budgets, wage forecasts and controls over the public sector. Under this government much of the additional inflation is coming from public sector costs, wages and prices, and from Regulators allowing large rises in regulated prices.
Bad Bank and official policies are good at bringing governments down and damaging the economy. Their Exchange Rate Mechanism policy created a wild boom/bust to get rid of the 1992 Conservative government, and their QE debauched currency got rid of the last Conservative government.
June 8, 2026
“Putin invaded Ukraine and put up energy prices.”
I knew he invaded Ukraine, but didn’t realise he also instructed our leaders stop buying russian hydrocarbons.
June 8, 2026
I found this wording odd, too. Especially since in the very next paragraph, Lord J. says that inflation wasn’t caused by rising oil prices. Maybe he feels he has to do a bit of routine Russia-bashing first, to keep certain people happy, before getting on with the serious stuff.
June 8, 2026
@Wanderer – a fiction created by those refusing to get on and manage, do there job. The latest bizarre one over the weekend, an out of control governor at the BOE has said having a portrait of Churchill on bank notes was a ‘security risk’. Its as if someone opened the doors on a remote lunatic asylum and let them inhabit the House of Commons – its the only thing that makes sense.
They all want to manipulate minds of others, for the benefit of personal ego rather than do their job
June 8, 2026
The BoE committee is staffed by left wing group think individuals like most of the Quangos. We had Carney before a Canadian who had gone on to ruin Canadas economy.
There was no reason for the Bank to sell off bonds at a loss especially at the time when Liz Truss was PM. Deliberately undermining her because she wasn’t a WEF stodge.
The bank should have it’s independence removed as like the OBR it is consistently wrong.
June 8, 2026
Indeed plus Bank of England employees are permitted to “work” from overseas for up to 40 working days per year so with holidays that is about three and a half months. Doubtless for the rest much can be done from home in the UK or be taken off sick due to anxiety or similar.
June 8, 2026
Perhaps instead we should make the UK independent of the Bank of England and OBR and see how they manage with nobody to pay for their waste and worthlessness.
June 8, 2026
Ian, problem with changing BoE status would mean bank rate is taken over by government with a probable re-run of the 1970s by the current crowd.
June 8, 2026
Ian Wragg – the BoE was independent from 1694 until the Labour Government Nationalised it in 1946. Since then the taxpayer therefore through the Chancellor/Government/Parliament has been the paymaster manager owner. Theoretical independence in 1997 is just that a theory, as Parliament/Government holds the purse strings they as paymaster are the management and the Taxpayer still pays.
Parliament needs to stop playing games, stop their personal ego wanting to manipulate, step up or really butt out. The BoE was independent for 250 years, did the job helped form a Nation – then along comes political ideology/ego, the Socialist, Socialism can do it better so it acolytes should be showered in the glory. Just as with the Motor, Shipbuilding, Steel, Aircraft industry they set out to destroy, the pattern that we still see today, destroy, destroy, destroy. Parliament/Government own the destruction we the taxpayer pays the bill
June 8, 2026
A country that allows its manufacturing base to be dismantled, locks down its population under enforced idleness, daft initiatives ‘eat out to help out’. A country with a new government keen to spend money. Lack of genuine employment opportunities. Changing attitudes among part of the workforce to employment.
What could go wrong?
June 8, 2026
@Peter – it called Socialism, preen personal ideological ego and get everyone else to pay. Lords and Surfs repeating once more
June 8, 2026
Spot on Peter
June 8, 2026
John, the BoEs part in the growth of inflation is valid up to point. I think you under allocate the energy policy failures part it what has gone on and continues to dog our economy.
Your adoption of monetary policies being the prime reason for the removal of the Major Conservative government and subsequently the May/Johnson et al Conservative administration in 2024 is also missing a significant influencing ingredient.
On both occasions the Conservatives were removed from office due to the Party’s policy towards ever closer control of our affairs by the EU.
In Major’s case the economy had virtually recovered from the EU push for ERM and the monetary crisis he championed, though he but was not forgiven, Chancellor Clark ( a rampant Europhile) presiding over a tough but effective monetary policy in the 1990s that gave Blair/Brown a golden economic opportunity which hhey threw away and trashed.
In the case of the Tory post Referendum behaviour, books written would fill a small library. Suffice it to say, the insane policy to remain controlled by the EU post referendum, even to the extent of continuing to give them ongoing rights io our fishing waters under their control, was why the election in 2024 was lost. Labour were not a popular option as shown by only 20.4% of the electorate voting for Starmer and Co. The electorate were saying clearly, the ongoing submission to the EU by Tory policy makers has to stop.
Whether there will be any chance of recovery via change in Tory EU submission policy, remains to be seen. At the present rate of reassimilation into EU control by Labour, 2029 may be too late to change anything,
I could speak about Sunak’s contribution to the inflation bubble. What ever the actual damage to society the Covid virus may have threatened, the time out, eat out and drop out, provided by Sunak as a riposte effectively destroyed commercial sanity at the most basic level, but you know the score.
June 8, 2026
That wasn’t only the things that brought down the Conservative government in 2024, it was also that they came up to the election with nothing working except the cross channel taxi service.
June 8, 2026
Dave …exactly……’QE debauched currency got rid of the last Conservative government.’
Although Lord Redwood is often at pains to refuse criticism of past governments, it needs to be pointed out that there were many solid reasons to refuse to vote for the last Conservative government.
June 8, 2026
I wouldn’t give Sunak too much stick for this. He was surely only trying to make up for the massive harm caused to the hospitality trade by the Johnson government’s three-months plus closure of pubs and restaurants. A classic case of a very expensive cost to be paid, for making a catastrophic mistake in the first place. Three weeks of lockdown was more than enough to see how things were.
June 8, 2026
Sunak was the Chancellor during the Johnson era and during the period of policy development needed (apparently) to cope with Covid. He had the financial controls and could have asked, “where is the money going to come from to sustain businesses if you mandate closing them all down”? He went along with the folly and may have been a key advocate. We should remember Starmer wanted even more lock down and longer and sooner. I guess Labour had no concern about long term impacts, or the costs involved either.
June 8, 2026
Had Boris and Sunak done nothing about Covid (saving £600bn), no lockdowns, no net harm “vaccines” the UK would have been better off in health terms and financial terms. Same again with May’s moronic Net Zero agenda that almost all Tory and Labour MP moronically nodded through.
June 8, 2026
I don’t have a great opinion of Sunak, but I remember he was mentioned as the one member of the ‘quad’ (Johnson and other ministers) who apparently pushed back against continuing the lockdowns. In fairness, it must have been very difficult at the time for a minister, surrounded by often Common Purpose-affiliated officials, and under relentless opposition and media pressure, not to have ‘gone along with the folly’. He would have been a hero if he had, but how many politicians can afford to be heroes? The government Covid fear campaign was not his doing, and in Summer 2020 he helped to encourage a population browbeaten for months by stay-at-home propaganda to go out and start to enjoy life again. So I’ll just say Sunak deserves some credit for that.
June 8, 2026
@Rod Evans +1
June 8, 2026
‘The last piece of Denby pottery goes to the kiln after 217 years’
It struggled to cope with rising energy and employment costs. A country that allows something like this to happen has governments that don’t know or care what they are doing.
June 8, 2026
@Peter – its the whole of Parliament with their chosen government that doesn’t care, consider or understand their purpose. The WEF Socialist/Marxists conspiracy doctrine ‘writ large’ To build a society in your own personal image you must first destroy all remnants of the ‘Old’
June 8, 2026
Covid is said to have cost £450bn. We could have bought ten mid-sized wars for that.
Putting the nation under doctor’s orders is about the most expensive thing government can do. It was unnecessary and horribly damaging, but to be fair that’s a judgement of hindsight, which is a luxury governments do not possess.
Net Zero is a similar folly which will produce another huge bill for nothing. Hindsight is not needed to see that, just common sense.
June 8, 2026
Not at all a judgement of hind sight. It was well know at the time of the lockdowns that COVID was only making a tiny few young people seriously ill. All the lockdowns could ever do was delay a few elderly people’s deaths by weeks and delay natural vaccinations for the young a large negative. The Barrington declaration people gave the correct way to go. The vaccines did net harm too and this was clear rather early too. How could they do good for the many people who did not need them the young and those who had had Covid already! Even if they had been safe and effective?
June 8, 2026
and not to mention that inability to see GPs and get referrals where cancer was quite likely – and even then inability to have that referral carried out led to tens of thousands of curable cases becoming terminal.
June 8, 2026
The NHS certainly has fairly dire results measure by outcomes, cancer and maternity outcomes especially poor.
June 8, 2026
The UK’s debt as a share of GDP has tripled over the past 25 years, piling pressure on the Government’s finances, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Alas this was not spent on anything of much of any value – over £1 trillion of it was spent doing net harm on dangerous net harm covid vaccines mad Covid lockdowns and net zero rip off energy lunacy. Much of the rest on HS2, pointless misdirected Quangos or benefits to deter people from working. All this borrowing yet we have appalling defences, a second rate NHS, poor schools, no border controls and a doom loop economy!
June 8, 2026
The tripling of national debt as a percentage of GDP over the past 25 years is Blair’s legacy.
Socialism’s mantra, increase growth, refers to growth of debt, the very opposite of wealth.
June 8, 2026
Indeed Blair and Brown did huge damage but alas Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak did not undo the damage done they just continued with the socialist disaster Blair had started – tightening up Net Zero, the Sunak/Boris Covid lockdown and the “vaccine” lunacy making matters far worse still.
June 8, 2026
@Lifelogic – The UK’s tax burden over the same period has grown close on 3 times 400 to 1.3 trillion. The tax against GDP has increased by 25% over the same time. Then price in the debt and debt repayments.
What is the purpose of Parliament/Government when the refuse to manage, they all, all 650MPs own the sorry state they have created for the UK. Spending isn’t Budgeting, controlling expenditure is.
As you alluded to the other day Thatcher was the last person(the last Conservative) in Parliament to even comprehend what Budgeting was.
Parliament is stuffed full of ‘free-loaders’ preening them selves on the back of other peoples hard work while refusing to do their jobs.
June 8, 2026
@Lifelogic – Some Countries have gotten away with large debts. The fundamental difference they all earn, they earn buy having an industrial base and resources to sell to the World. The UK Parliament has cancelled the UK’s Industrial Base, the UK Parliament has cancelled the UK resources in effect the UK Parliament has cancelled a tomorrow and a future for the UK – out of spite or crass ideology?
The one and only hope, the Service Industry is being passed bye, the use of technology by even the smallest nations on Earth is moving on, and the UK Parliament can’t, wont even allow the energy production to power the scraps that are left. – The enemy is not Putin, not the oil and gas prices its the 650 MPs in the UK Parliament, they refuse their job.
June 8, 2026
Official Office for National Statistics (ONS) metrics confirm that the UK’s monthly debt interest payments just hit £10.3 billion, marking the most expensive month of borrowing costs on record. The total national debt is actively tracking to cross the £3 trillion
June 8, 2026
The difference to printing money that went before and the covid printing is that the covid printing was given to the plebs and they spent it increasing prices through.
Previous printing was given to institutions who made money as did others rich enough to have invested in assets.
Helicopter money and Universal Basic income will always increase inflation by at least as much as the giveaways.
June 8, 2026
This was a period when government went totally off the rails. They literally threw money at a problem they didn’t understand, mis-advised by those that should have known better. So much money was wasted on unnecessary medical protection while the PM at the time showed how much they held us in low esteem by taking a photo shoot with other leaders. Immediately after the media opportunity the PM and others removed their masks – proving that masks and all the other expensive medical items were all for show.
Certainly mistakes were made at this time, but many in power took the opportunity to take advantage of the fear element and dictated rules that were too stringent. Is it any wonder so few now believe the hype we keep on hearing about new pandemics. The WHO was at the forefront of the ‘mistakes’ but they are still trying to gain authority over our lives and have the ability to empower themselves whenever they want.
June 8, 2026
You touched on the real problem at the end of your post my Lord. Our currency is steadily being eroded (devalued) and this can only continue with the level of debt we have. In fact given that this Government cannot grow it’s way out and is unwilling to cut expenditure, it seems a racing certainty that it will try to “inflate” its way out. It will do this by devaluing the Pound and in doing so try to reduce the real value of our debt. I’m assuming of course that we don’t re-enter the EU and are forced to adopt the Euro. In that case we will no longer control our financial fate and the BoE will no longer matter. But then if that happens, nor will the UK either.
June 8, 2026
Correct – how long before we find EVERYTHING priced at round pounds or £s+50p – smaller denominations abandoned?
June 8, 2026
“full indemnity from taxpayers” the phrase that defines independence. All the time Parliament/Government takes other peoples money(taxes) to ‘give’ to others there is no independence, there is just simply a Parliament & Government taking full responsibility – while in denial. As the say ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’
The core root of the UK’s problems is a Parliament/Government running amok, refusing its duties, as such it is running under false pretences and serves no purpose.
June 8, 2026
The UK’s Parliament & Governments refusal to step up and manage gives us runaway unaccountable Quango, then as reported in yesterdays Media the MOD has misplaced/lost £6Billion (just £6Billion).
OK on the later item it was MPs that uncovered the MOD’s shall we call it miss-reporting. But the point is that the UK Parliament, the UK Management hold the purse strings and seemingly don’t care its other peoples money. They should be on top of all expenditure just as the expect every single household in the UK to be.
An an estimated £5.8 billion of UK’s taxpayer money was lost went down the drain over the last time the UK got messed up with ERASMUS. What does the Parliament/Government choose to do today – send them more money, for what there is no gain to the UK just loses.
The list of the UK’s Parliaments/Government uncontrolled expenditure/loss of other peoples money(taxes) know no bounds. They don’t even look, think, or consider their job is as manager, they just look for more contrived ways to extract more and more taxes to the can throw them away on lost ideology and ego.
June 8, 2026
Rachel Reeves exaggerating the Bank of England aspect of her CV should have revealed the reverse effect had anyone sensible noticed it at the time.
June 8, 2026
I don’t remember the BoE initiating the “get paid for not working” scheme. I remember that being done by the so called Conservative government.
June 8, 2026
We know you’re right but even some financial commentators still blame the Russian situation but who can forget the BoE guy saying he was ‘looking through’ inflation? He should have gone to the ‘legendary’ opticians.
June 8, 2026
Tate & Lyle to be sold off to Americans.
We desperately need barriers to entry to keep our industrial base intact. This sort of thing does not happen in Switzerland, Germany or France.
June 8, 2026
“Bad Bank and official policies are good at bringing governments down and damaging the economy. Their Exchange Rate Mechanism policy created a wild boom/bust to get rid of the 1992 Conservative government, and their QE debauched currency got rid of the last Conservative government.”
This is deliberate and has been so for decades. Our Parliament, Civil Service, institutions, quangos, MSM and judiciary are infested with fifth column communists as a result of Robert Conquest’s 2nd and 3rd laws of politics. The current Governor of the BoE was the Chair of the Fabian Society when at Cambridge. The PM and Chancellor are Fabians. Lord Gus Lord Gus O’Donnell who, when Cabinet Secretary, said in 2011: “When I was at the Treasury I argued for the most open door possible to immigration….. I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare not national.” We need far more to be done than requiring the “Bank of England to revise its economic model and forecasting methods”. We need a complete clear out of people who are actively “bringing down governments and damaging the economy” and start enacting the necessary legislation to bring back democracy and the end of the planned impoverishment through the de-industrialisation of Net Zero. If Net Zero was not economic suicide the fifth column communists would not have invented a climate crisis for socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor.
June 8, 2026
I’d suggest that those countries you’ve listed, also have in three additional factors in common, (1) the introduction of net-zero, (2) uncontrolled immigration and (3) uncontrolled massive UK national debt
June 8, 2026
I fail to see why the Bank of England should “target” 2% inflation. Why is there a target to devalue our money by 2% every year?
What function does the Bank of England achieve these days? It used to raise money for the government, when money was gold. Now the government can raise any amount of “money” out of thin air, since it has no link to reality. I think the Bank of England exists to deflect people from realising this.
June 8, 2026
The world at large has moved on and,unfortunately,our little bit of it is reduced to parading and faltering
pomp and circumstance.The entire pack of scavenging Labour,Conservative,Liberal/LibDems feasting
on the lucrative remains of a once-giant country to be proud of is a national disgrace I’m sorry to say
that you must shoulder some of the blame.
June 8, 2026
Port Talbot if and when it comes into production will absorb about a quarter of UK’s annual
production of scrap steel.UK is the world’s second largest exporter of scrap steel.Evidently
there is a market for scrap steel and for the steel produced from it.So why on earth are
we not building another 3/4 processing facilities.Just about sums up UK now
June 8, 2026
lucy powell wants the government to control all social media algorithms, the government is using a ban on kids accessing social media to force all adults to register, so they can be tracked and prosecuted for free speech. if only orwell knew it would be this bad.
June 9, 2026
Given that one’s search engine is more likely than not to be Google or Google-linked one’s media search can already be tracked. The only difference is that there is (as yet) no obvious enforcement of what is ‘free speech’.
Is your ´Web and App activity’ off?
Is your ‘Timeline’ off?
Is your ‘YouTube history’ off?
lifewire.com ‘What Google knows about you and how to control it’s.
lifewire.com ‘How to stop Google from tracking your searches’.
pcmag.com ‘Don’t let Google track you: Change these three settings ASAP’.
20/02/2026 pcmag.com ‘Sick of Google’s AI overload? Try these search engines instead’.