UK Christmas shoppers face biggest price rises since 1990; Covid hits German consumer confidence – as it happened

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Latest: UK selling prices rise at the fastest pace since May 1990
• CBI: Supply chain worries prompted early Christmas shopping early.
• Crisps and painkillers top list of shortages in stores

Earlier:

• Pound around lowest levels against US dollar this year
• Fed members ready to raise interest rates if inflation stays high
• German consumer sentiment hit by fourth Covid wave and inflation
• JP Morgan boss regrets' making joke about Chinese Communist party

The UK government has begun to count the cost of Bulb Energy's collapse as many begin to wonder whether it is a fair price to pay for policymakers' failure to spot a looming market breakdown.

My colleague Jillian Ambrose writes.

The life-support scheme set up to allow Bulb to keep supplying gas and electricity to its 1.7 million customers through the winter months could cost taxpayers up to 1.7bn, or 1,000 per customer, according to a court application to hand the company to a special administrator.

Officials are understood to be focused on finding a quick exit strategy from the arrangement as early in the new year as possible to help limit the eye-watering costs, as signs of the supplier's unsustainable" business model grow clearer.