It’s a mixed bag for Sunak and Hunt this morning as new figures from the Office for National Statistics have CPI inflation falling to 3.2% in March, down from 3.4% in February. A higher level than the forecast 3.1%…

The ONS says falling inflation was partially offset by rising fuel prices. April’s figure will be more important as changes like the energy price cap drop are fed through. All eyes are on the Bank of England as the UK approaches the 2% inflation target…

Labour achieved a massive Overton window shift when it successfully pressured multiple Tory administrations to parrot the phrase ‘cost of living crisis’ at every opportunity. There is positive news for Sunak on this front at least today as new figures show food price inflation has slowed for the tenth consecutive month, with retail analysts now forming the view that shop prices are no longer a major factor in cost of living pressures. Mainstream coverage of this development is pretty much non-existent this morning…

UK shop price inflation fell below 2% in March. Shop price annual inflation is down to 1.3% in March, according to the British Retail Consortium. That’s the lowest since December 2021. Odd that the government isn’t making more of this…

New figures from the Office for National Statistics this morning will bring a smile to Rishi’s face – for the first time in a while.  CPI inflation fell to 3.4%, its lowest since September 2021. The figure is quite a bit lower than analysts and the Bank of England expected. Now it looks like Rishi will hit more than just his 2% goal, with analysts saying it could ease toward 1% in April…

Meanwhile core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, also fell more than expected to 4.5%. Despite all this, the Bank of England looks likely to maintain interest rates at the record high 5.25% on Thursday. Sigh…

New figures from the Office for National Statistics this morning make better-than-expected reading for Hunt and Sunak as CPI inflation for the year to January sticks at 4%. The figure rose last month after 10 months of drops. Economists expected a rise of 4.2% this time…

The government was privately expecting a larger increase thanks to the lifted energy price cap and rising alcohol prices, which didn’t materialise. Inflation is expected to drop more significantly this month. Onwards and downwards…

There have been better weeks for Laura Trott. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury yesterday ploughed on in an interview with Evan Davis in which the pair argued whether debt as a percentage of GDP would be falling in five years. In that same interview Trott called Labour’s £28 billion U-turn a mess, “the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years“. Davis listed off a few recent government U-turns in response…

• Betrayal of pledge to not raise National Insurance.
• Health and social care levy scrapped.
• Social care reform scrapped.
• HS2 scrapped.
• Electric car mandate shifted back by five years.
• Immigration reform was reformed. “A U-turn on a U-turn”…
• Railway station ticket halls now staying.
• Fines for missing GP appointments
• A bonfire of EU laws and regulations. Still with us today…

Guido also noticed Trott claiming on Politics Live this week that inflation is an indication of better quality of products and services in an economy. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon, something which Guido would hope the minister responsible for public expenditure would know. Laura is one of the government’s more capable ministers on media – this does not bode well for the rest of them come the campaign…

Bad forecasting costs lives. New analysis by Bloomberg has found that there was never a point in 2023 when the consensus estimate of economists of inflation matched the figure that then came from the Office for National Statistics. For four months actual inflation numbers fell out of the entire range of UK forecast estimates. That’s the worst record in the G7….

The Bank of England massively overshot its inflation prediction at the end of 2022 – predicting 13.1% with the actual figure at 10.8%. Ratcheted-up interest rates followed as the BoE’s economists then underestimated the resilience of the high inflation “blip” in the first half of 2023 before overestimating price pressures in the second half. Its economists will have a heavy influence on the Monetary Policy Committee’s interest rate decisions – which determine mortgage and borrowing costs for the economy. No wonder the Bank was attacked by the Lords for a “dramatic” fall in public confidence…

We have fully geared economic policy to run off of accurate objective forecasting that there has never been. Forecasters’ credibility gap is making and breaking the political careers of PMs and chancellors without accountability. The shackles of false gold-plated projections will continue to trip up politicians unless they are broken…

See also: Tories Rally Against OBR’s Massively Inaccurate Forecasting