Charting a grim historical note as inflation tops 9%

The Prime Minister now presides over an inflation rate approaching its Thatcherism highs (Leon Neal/PA)

(Picture: PA Wire)

I am grateful to Susannah Streeter, markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, for providing a pop chart context to today’s inflation figure.

Apparently the last time consumer prices were rising at 9.1% in March 1982 the appropriately named Tight Fit were at Number One with ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’. But interest rates were then at 13.5% rather than today’s 1.25%. The contrast with today could not be more stark.