Every month, our friends at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish the latest annual inflation rate, which measures the change in the price of regularly purchased products compared with the same time the previous year. Today, that figure (or rather, July's figure) was 2.2 per cent, slightly up on June but below market expectations.
To avoid having to monitor the cost every single thing for sale, the ONS relies on a basket of goods and services. These items change so that the measure remains representative of actual consumer patterns, and the media tends to get excited when they do, because it turns a tedious story about inflation into one about the rise of air fryers and whatnot.
