Inflation - Also Someone Else’s Fault

As the cost of living crisis begins to really bite, with food prices rising inexorably and energy bills set to go up even more come the autumn, we have the grotesque spectacle of a Government that has effectively ceased to function, its ministers either absent from the field of play, asleep at the wheel, or lashing out in an effort to play the blame game and distract voters.

I'll blame who the f*** I choose, c***

The deflection provided by howling about same-sex toilets (travel by rail or air not easy for those with that particular phobia), diversity training which is spuriously alleged to be “left wing”, and blaming the BBC for not loving the Commonwealth enough (broadcasting the Commonwealth Games clearly not sufficient penance for this heinous crime) isn’t providing sufficient distraction..

Inflation is taking hold. Many of those ordinary hard-working Brits who the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press claims to champion are worried. Some are getting rather adjacent to being unable to pay their bills. So is the press on the case of soon to be former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his coterie of ineptitude? Ah well.

Here a problem enters: the right-wing press is fully invested in keeping the Tories in power. It backed Bozo; it will back his successor. Inflation, like Brexit, chronic delays at ports and airports, an overloaded NHS, creaking infrastructure and an increasingly unhappy workforce, must be blamed on someone else. It’s about money. So it must be the banks. And bankers.

And so it came to pass that the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, under the less than benign rule of their legendarily foul mouthed editor in chief, this morning declared that the Governor of the Bank of England was The One Wot Done It. Andrew Bailey and his Monetary Policy Committee had just raised interest rates by half a percentage point. Cue deluge of spite.

“Inflation’s set to hit almost SEVEN times his official target. Critics accuse Bank Governor of being asleep at the wheel. Now we face a YEAR of recession - and soaring interest rates … BANKER WHO’S RUNNING OUT OF CREDIT” thunders today’s Mail headline. Daily Mail readers face higher mortgage bills. House prices may suffer. This cannot go unpunished.

So the punishment beating began. “Critics said Bank officials should ‘rue the day’ they decided not to raise interest rates last year. It came as grim economic predictions forced the Bank to raise interest rates by 0.5 percentage points - the largest amount since 1995 - to reach 1.75 per cent”. Missing that their hero Bozo dismissed talk of inflation last year.

There was more. “The Bank said the red-hot inflation will cause the UK to slump into a drawn-out recession, with output shrinking for 15 months from the final quarter of this year until the end of 2023. Households will see their real incomes, or how much money they make taking into account rising prices, fall by the largest amount on record, it predicted”.

And there was the inevitable comment piece, from Alex Brummer, one of those who defended the Mail’s viciously anti-Semitic attack on the memory of Ralph Miliband. “In choppy seas, does Bank of England have the right captain?” is the suitably leading question, for which he had a response ready.

“Can we draw any comfort from the grim prediction that the surge in the cost of living will continue throughout next year and into 2024, and that inflation could soar as high as 13.3 per cent this winter? We can. The Bank’s blundering Governor, Andrew Bailey, has been wrong in most of his forecasts up to this point … His credibility is badly shot - and he may have overstated the problem. But you don’t have to take my word for it”. You tell ‘em!

So whose word should we take for it? “EY, the audit and consulting giant, argues that the UK ‘ecowill perform better than the Bank predicts’ and accuses the Bank’s inflation forecasts of ‘resting on limited foundations’ … Another City firm, Capital Economics, also disputes the Bank’s predictions, saying Bailey’s recession forecasts are ‘deeper and longer’ than its own”.

There is also a substantial serving of hindsight, which would be more credible had the Mail been able to point to its own warnings. But readers were left in no doubt that inflation, like all the other economic and social problems that one would normally expect Governments to address, was not the fault of the Mail’s chosen administration. Andrew Bailey had to carry the can for it.

Expect a lot more of this as a Government formerly led by Bozo, and most likely to soon be taken over by Liz Truss, flounders under the weight of its own culture war deflection, anti-minority and anti-foreigner blame gaming, and above all its towering ineptitude. The country will have to go a long way down the toilet before the Mail admits it backed the wrong horse.

You thought they cared about ordinary people? You’ve been had. Again.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton