{"id":74194,"date":"2024-02-14T07:15:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T07:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=74194"},"modified":"2024-02-14T07:15:51","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T07:15:51","slug":"the-december-inflation-figure-is-just-fodder-to-let-the-bank-of-england-keep-interest-rates-high-for-as-long-as-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/02\/14\/the-december-inflation-figure-is-just-fodder-to-let-the-bank-of-england-keep-interest-rates-high-for-as-long-as-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"The December inflation figure is just fodder to let the Bank of England keep interest rates high for as long as possible"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<p data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen6431828_5084=\"207\" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen6431828_5084=\"207\" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time6431828_5084=\"1000\" data-gtm-vis-has-fired6431828_5084=\"1\">As the Office for National Statistics <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/inflationandpriceindices\/bulletins\/consumerpriceinflation\/december2023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has reported this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<ul>\n<li>The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 4.0% in the 12 months to December 2023, up from 3.9% in November, and the first time the rate has increased since February 2023.<\/li>\n<li>On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 0.4% in December 2023, the same rate as in December 2022.<\/li>\n<li>The largest upward contribution to the monthly change in both CPIH and CPI annual rates came from alcohol and tobacco while the largest downward contribution came from food and non-alcoholic beverages.<\/li>\n<li>Core CPI (excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) rose by 5.1% in the 12 months to December 2023, the same rate as in November; the CPI goods annual rate slowed from 2.0% to 1.9%, while the CPI services annual rate increased from 6.3% to 6.4%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let's put this in context. The main contributors to inflation in the month were:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-74196\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49-550x491.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"491\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49-550x491.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49-336x300.png 336w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49-768x685.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49-448x400.png 448w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-14-at-07.10.49.png 1056w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The rise in tobacco prices is still related to a change in the law deliberately pushing prices up. Everything else nets out to zero. And no one expected another significant fall in inflation until the energy price cap falls in a couple of months' time.<\/p>\n<p>The media will be all over this saying the battle on inflation has not been won as yet and that catch up wage rises are threatening a wagwe price spiral. All of that is nonsense. By mid-year inflation will be near 2%. That will be hard to avoid now. Eberything else in the media omn this issue is just fodder to let the Bank of England keep interest rates high.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Office for National Statistics has reported this morning: The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 4.0% in the 12 months to December 2023,<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/02\/14\/the-december-inflation-figure-is-just-fodder-to-let-the-bank-of-england-keep-interest-rates-high-for-as-long-as-possible\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74197,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74194\/revisions\/74197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}