The sharp rise in interest rates will leave mortgage holders and renters paying hundreds of pounds a month more.
It will increase the cost of Government borrowing, meaning there is less money for public services, and hit anyone who has taken on debt to make ends meet.
The Bank of England has used the only weapon in its armoury to try to bring down inflation. But this is a crisis that has been incubated in Downing Street, not the Bank’s home in Threadneedle Street.
It is not an accident that inflation is higher in Britain than in America or the Eurozone.
Nor is it an accident that we are the only major economy which has yet to see wages return to pre-pandemic levels.
These are the consequences of successive Tory governments which, in the last 13 years, have lumbered the country with austerity, failed to invest in jobs and industry, negotiated a self-defeating Brexit deal and then let Liz Truss smash the economy.
It is time they took responsibility for a mess of their own making that will see families facing months, if not years, of hardship.
Knight’s right
All this week, Tories have denied austerity had any bearing on the country’s ability to deal with Covid.
It took Sir Chris Whitty to tell the truth.
In his evidence to the Covid Inquiry the Chief Medical Officer suggested a lack of investment meant the UK was not able to “scale up” quickly to deal with the outbreak.
And he said the best way to protect against further pandemics was to invest in the NHS.
Under the Tories the public health budget has been cut by nearly £1billion a year.
The NHS was under-prepared for Covid because it was under-funded.
Geek & destroy
Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have agreed to a cage fight.
As Henry Kissinger said of the Iran-Iraq War: “Let’s hope they both lose.”
