Sunak should never have made his inflation pledge

The prime minister has set a target that was not in his power to deliver, and he ignored political convention to do so

Back in January, Rishi Sunak presumably thought it was a smart way to try to project an air of confidence and stability from Downing Street after the Liz Truss wildness. Promise something that, according to the collective wisdom of financial markets, was about 95% likely to happen anyway. Thus the first of the prime minister's five new year pledges to the British people was this: We will halve inflation this year to ease the cost of living and give people financial security."

Never mind the fact that the Bank of England - not the government - sets interest rates to tackle inflation. Sunak's calculation, one assumes, was that an easy win was on the cards and he could scoop the credit by being the person who had set the target.