Every month now brings the same ritual. The CSO publishes the Consumer Price Index, a minister goes on the radio to explain that inflation is “easing”, and households go back to paying more for the weekly shop than they did the month before.
In June, prices were up 3.4% on the year. In April it was 3.7%, the highest reading since the tail end of the last inflationary spike in January 2024. Housing, water, electricity and gas costs are up over 8% year on year. Education costs are up 8.9%. Clothing and footwear, an unglamorous but telling barometer of squeezed household budgets, is up close to 7%. This is not a country where inflation has been beaten. It is a country where inflation has become ambient — a persistent background hum behind every transaction — and where the people responsible for that hum keep insisting it has nothing to do with them.
This article is premium content
Get unlimited access to Gript
Support Gript and get exclusive content, full archives and an ad-free experience
Subscribe
Already a member? Sign in here