Be warned: inflation could take British politics to a very dark place indeed | Jonathan Freedland

If Britain ends up in the recession expected by the Bank of England, public anger will be looking for an outlet

Winter is coming. The Bank of England says so. Pick your measure of the economic gale that is heading this way, deepening a chill that's already biting hard. The Bank says inflation will reach 13%, shrinking the value of wages, making everything more expensive, starting with eating and heating, forcing yet more people to decide whether to starve or shiver. We are to brace for a recession that will see five consecutive quarters of contraction, and a decline in household incomes of 5% by 2024 - the biggest fall since records began more than half a century ago. Of course, all this will hit hardest those with least. One in five UK households will be left with no savings at all by 2024. Meanwhile, inflation is as much as 30% higher in the towns and cities of northern England, thanks, says the Centre for Cities, to poor home insulation and a car dependency" that forces people to shell out more on petrol.

You don't have to be a strict economic materialist of the old school to know all this will shape our politics, in ways both deep and shallow. Start with the latter and the current contest to pick Britain's next prime minister, a process of anointment mysteriously delegated to a select priesthood of 100,000 or so Britons who are anything but representative of the country whose fate they hold in their hands.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist