Blame Covid: why UK inflation is at its highest for 30 years | Larry Elliott

After three decades of stability the virus has done for the cost of living what wars did in the past

Mobile phones were still a rarity. Shopping online was a thing of the future. The launch of football's Premier League was looming. This was Britain in March 1992, the last time the annual inflation rate was as high as it is today.

Nobody under the age of 30 can really recall when the cost of living was a pressing political issue. There have been the occasional surges, usually caused by a rise in global oil prices, but nothing to match what has happened in the past six months.