British inflation hits three year high
British Prime Minister David Cameron at a conference on energy prices yesterday. Today’s inflation figures show that energy costs are the main factor in driving inflation in Britain to a three-year high
Afternoon edition:
Where were we? Oh, time for our daily troll through economic statistics. Today's big, nasty number: British inflation is now running at 5.2 percent. That's a three year high
With wages rising by 1.8 percent that means real income is falling by close to 4 percent. You have to go back to the early 80's to find such a nasty figure. And you wonder why people are not optimistic?
Main driver of the price rise: energy costs (it goes without saying): houshold bills for energy were up dramatically, but also pass along costs deriving from fuel costs like transportation and food prices.
Otherwise it is all Gilad Shalit all the time around Europe as news junkies get their fill of a moment five years in the making. Most every major paper's website is covering the event live.
Ian Black in The Guardian has a remarkably thoughtful essay on how yet again Egypt has proven itself the indispensable intermediary for Israeli-Palestinian interaction … There has been a fair amount of guff coming out of the right wing (the louder wing) of Washington's commentariat about the Arab Spring being bad for Israel. Black offers a very well reasoned counter to that view.
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