Some people will have seen the truly awful video of Jeremy Hunt, filmed in a cafe at the Treasury, where he supposedly uses coffee cups to explain inflation and got just about every claim he made wrong. It was so bad I ignored it.
Matt Green did not. This is his, corrected, version:
Jeremy Hunt uses coffee cups to explain the economy! pic.twitter.com/SlkNSYYhjy
— Matt Green (@mattgreencomedy) January 19, 2023
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Buy me a coffee!
Spot on!
He forgot the mandatory big flag in the background.
Hunt did too
Brilliant!! Thanks for sharing. It’s not often these days I get to start the day with a laugh.
That’s how to shoot a video that really makes its point. Changes in camera angle, clever use of graphic illustrations, and background music. And all in 2 mins 20 sec. Richard, please take note.
But that is all he does
I shall forward it to my MP. J Hunt Esq…
Ooh! You sadist, Robin.
Bet he doesn’t respond.
I gave my Bridgwater MP the benefit of my opinion on Brexit four times. Did not even acknowledge that he had received them.
Are you sure you are spelling your MP’s name correctly, Mr. Stafford?
(Asking for a friend.)
Just to remind people, here is what CPI inflation looks like for the period from 1989 to 2023.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-consumer-price-index-cpi-united-kingdom-uk/
After a period of very low inflation in 2014 to 2016, CPI was above the 2% target from February 2017 to December 2018. It remained around 2%; then fell below 2% in July 2019, and remained below 2% until April 2021. Then inflation rapidly increased – 0.4% in February 2021; 2.1% in May 2021; 4.1% in October 2021; 6.2% in February 2022.
Putin did not invade Ukraine until 24 February 2022. For much of the last year or so inflation has been running at around 10%, but any bump caused by Putin (or other issues) sits on top of 6% inflation at February 2022 which had been increasing month by month for the whole of the previous year.
(If inflation is still 10% next month, that means a price of 100 in February 2021 became 106 in February 2022 and 117 in February 2023).
And to remind people, the Bank of England cut base rates to 0.1% in March 2020, and only started to increase them in December 2021, by which time inflation has been above target for six months. Perhaps it was and is the wrong tool, but it is essentially the only one they have, and they didn’t use it until inflation had already reached 5%. Again, three months before the invasion of Ukraine.
It would have never really solved post Covid inflation either
With your blogs about inflation and interest rates in mind, I chanced upon this Bank of England ‘explainers’ page. It explains very little, e.g. “Raising interest rates means that many people will face higher borrowing costs. And some businesses will face higher loan rates. We know that this will make things hard for many people, coming on top of higher energy and grocery bills.
But we need to act to lower inflation. Low and stable inflation is vital for a healthy economy where people can plan for the future and where hard-earned money keeps its value.
That’s why we have been raising interest rates over the last year. Doing this will help make sure inflation comes back down from the middle of 2023….”.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/will-inflation-in-the-uk-keep-rising