Today has brought some good news on the inflation front for the UK, so let us get straight to it. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 4.0% in the 12 months to January 2024, the same rate as in December 2023. In itself a 4% inflation rate is nothing to shout about of course. But there was a reason to expect a rise this month and it comes from establishment incompetence. Regular readers will know that wholesale natural gas prices have been on the decline this winter but the UK system of a quarterly cap brought a 5% rise in domestic fuel prices in January. This means that there was a 0.2 bump in the CPI inflation ... (full story)