Tory cuts of £816 per person, compared with a rise of £115 in Oxford, have left the city unable to protect those in needThis week started with me reporting a couple of things that many in Liverpool already know – that their city has been ravaged by the austerity agenda of the past nine years, and that the Conservatives don’t care too much about them and their lives.Most people in this city know it – and most people are angry about it – but this week’s report into local council funding cuts by the Centre for Cities thinktank brought into sharp focus just how unfair this all is.Related: Deprived northern regions worst hit by UK austerity, study findsRelated: The future of Liverpool: does the great port city still face out to sea? Continue reading...

Damian Hinds’ plan to reduce workload is sensible – but schools need more money tooThe government’s teacher recruitment and retention strategy for England contains much that is sensible and desperately needed. Key recruitment targets have been missed for six years in a row. In some subjects, and some parts of the country, shortages are acute. In physics, for example, the number of trainees last year was just 47% of the number sought. Bursaries trialled on maths graduates appear not to have solved the problem. A third of new teachers give it up within five years, while nine in 10 heads struggle to fill posts in the core subjects that make up the GCSE Ebacc. Last year, 10% of all secondary teachers left teaching. Meanwhile, the population bulge that followed the spike in the birthrate in the 2000s means the secondary-school-age population is expected to rise until 2025. The situation is accurately described as a crisis.The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has come up with a package of measures that he hopes will ease it. Efforts to reduce workload dovetail with the priorities set out in the new Ofsted inspection framework. Ministers and inspectors now acknowledge the “unintended consequences” of a system that has accountability as its overriding objective. One idea is that requirements for data collection should be relaxed, giving teachers more time to think about the substance of what they are teaching. Specific support for new teachers, which the government has promised to fund, includes mentoring and time outside the classroom. Inspectors, in future, will take a broader-brush approach, less focused on the minutiae of individual pupils’ measurable achievements and more on the big picture. Continue reading...

Court closures | Rachel Whiteread | Parakeets | Rooks v crows | Post-Brexit parachuting | Air travelYour front-page article on magistrates’ courts (28 January) applies to England and Wales. However, the Scottish sheriff’s courts have suffered similar cuts. With the closure of the sheriff’s court in Rothesay, the participants in any case have to travel to Greenock by ferry. So you have police, lawyers, defendants and witnesses travelling together, a perfect opportunity for trouble.

North-east and Wales should get over double the funding per person of London – studyA future Labour government should use funds from a national investment bank, targeted transport spending and buying British as part of a long-term strategy to spread economic prosperity to the struggling regions, a specially commissioned report for the party has said.The report called for funding from the national investment bank – a key plank of the opposition’s economic strategy to be heavily skewed in favour of communities hard hit by the decline in manufacturing.Related: England can be better than the Brexit caricature. We have to make the case for it | John Harris Continue reading...

Almost four in 10 Britons offer their time free of charge, but many of them are stepping in where the state has failedAt first it sounded quite lovely, didn’t it? The notion of a “big society” – back in those heady days when David Cameron and Nick Clegg stood side by side in the Downing Street garden. In May 2010, we were still ignorant of the devastating austerity these two men would go on to inflict. And so they offered us the “big society” – from the Cabinet Office a document was proudly produced. “Our Conservative-Liberal Democrat government has come together with a driving ambition: to put more power and opportunity into people’s hands,” reads the opening. “We want to give citizens, communities and local government the power and information they need to come together, solve the problems they face and build the Britain they want.”Related: Deprived northern regions worst hit by UK austerity, study findsThat so many of us volunteer our time is testament to our individual good nature, but in many cases it’s a sad indictment of our society Continue reading...

New HMRC forecast means 2% cut in rate to 17% will now cost Treasury £6.2bn in lost revenueThe government’s planned cuts to corporation tax look set to cost the public purse billions more in lost revenue than previously thought, according to new analysis.The tax rate on company profits is slated to be cut from its current level of 19% to just 17% by the end of the decade. But even before the planned cuts, the UK already had one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the developed world.Related: Tax, tech and electric cars: why is Dyson going to Singapore?Related: British taxpayers face £24bn bill for tax relief to oil and gas firms Continue reading...

Poorest areas bearing brunt of council spending cuts, according to thinktank analysisAusterity cuts have fallen hardest on deprived communities in the north of England, which are enduring the highest poverty rates and weakest economies, according to a study.The Centre for Cities thinktank study shows that the poorest areas have borne the brunt of council spending cuts. Local authority spending has fallen nationally by half since 2010, with areas such as Liverpool, Blackburn and Barnsley facing average cuts twice that of their counterparts in the more affluent south, according to the thinktank. Continue reading...

Struggling Yorkshire town has endured crippling council cuts – but locals are fighting backThat Barnsley is the British city worst affected by a near-decade of austerity cuts comes as no surprise to Susan Round, 61, owner of the Pats for Pants underwear stall in the town centre’s covered markets. “I do think it has got worse. The state of the roads. Social care. The hospitals. Antisocial behaviour. Spice.”According to the Centre for Cities thinktank, Barnsley council spending has reduced by 40% over eight years – around four times the average reduction faced by cities in the south-east – since the coalition decided in 2010 that local government would bear the brunt of austerity and the poorest boroughs would shoulder the biggest cuts.Related: Deprived northern regions worst hit by UK austerity, study finds Continue reading...

Readers respond to the news that Heidi Allen MP has embarked on an anti-austerity tour and discovered terrible poverty in the UKIt’s good to see that a Tory MP is moved to tears by witnessing the terrible poverty that exists in this country (‘I’ve absolutely had enough’: Tory MP embarks on anti-austerity tour, 24 January). But if they didn’t know about this already, Tory MPs were clearly alerted to by the recent report by the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty – a report that was either denounced or ignored by members of Heidi Allen’s party. Allen appears to acknowledge that the much of the poverty she has witnessed is the result of her party’s austerity policies.The honourable thing she should do is not only to openly criticise these policies but to walk over to join the ranks of a party that genuinely wants to eradicate poverty and promote progressive policies that ensure the redistribution of wealth.

Brexit is a solution to what wealthy Leavers perceive to be their problems. It will not remedy the discontents of the manyAs the Brexit farce proceeds, it is worth remembering that before David Cameron made his catastrophic error of calling a referendum, the EU was way down the list of British people’s concerns in almost every opinion poll. Indeed, not even in the first 11.The central point is that Brexit became the focus for all manner of discontents, many of them understandable. But leaving the EU would indubitably not be the answer to them, and would be guaranteed not to make the discontents into “glorious summer”.They should conduct a second referendum campaign which is not only anti-Brexit but also pro-investment Continue reading...

Young people hold a climate change strike on the final day of the World Economic Forum, after campaigner Greta Thunberg addresses delegates

Each month we look at key indicators to see what effect the Brexit process has on growth, prosperity and trade

Two former members of Bank of England’s rate-setting committee opine on the economic outlook

It’s never been cheaper to fix your home loan with decade-long deals as low as 2.44% (and no upfront fees)The world maybe at risk of another financial collapse and Brexit may send the UK economy off a cliff, but there is at least one positive outcome: it has never been cheaper to fix your mortgage payments for the next 10 years.According to the latest research from the mortgage number crunchers Moneyfacts, the average 10-year fixed mortgage rate has decreased significantly over the past five years and now stands at an average of 3.05%.Related: Lenders cut mortgage rates to give a kick-start to 2019 Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the third day of the World Economic Forum, as George Soros gives a speech on the sidelines of Davos

Speaking in Davos, chancellor says changes such as end to free movement are on the wayPhilip Hammond has told business leaders they need to accept the result of Britain’s EU referendum and warned that a failure to implement it would damage the country’s political stability.The chancellor told increasingly restless business leaders that he was working for a deal that safeguarded the economy, and said he understood their frustration but companies had to accept that changes were coming – such as an end to the free movement of people and business models built on a supply of cheap labour.Davos is a Swiss ski resort now more famous for hosting the annual four-day conference for the World Economic Forum. For participants it is a festival of networking. Getting an invitation is a sign you have made it – and the elaborate system of badges reveals your place in the Davos hierarchy.

Christine Lagarde urges world’s financial sector to find greater purpose and slams lack of women at top of bankingThe head of the IMF has warned against fat-cat pay after noticing an increase in executive rewards across the banking sector.Christine Lagarde used a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on Thursday to remind the financial sector against spiralling executive pay. Continue reading...

Average weekly outlay up £18 to £572.60 with extra spending paid for by borrowing or savings

One London borough has been bringing people together to work, socialise and dream. The results are extraordinaryIf there is hope, it lies here, in the most deprived borough in London. Barking and Dagenham has shocking levels of unemployment, homelessness, teenage pregnancy, domestic violence and early death. Until 2010, it was the main stronghold of the British National party. Its population turns over at astonishing speed: every year, about 8% of residents move out. But over the past year it has started to become known for something else: as a global leader in taking back control.Since the second world war, councils and national governments have sought to change people’s lives from the top down. Their efforts, during the first 30 years of this period at least, were highly effective, creating public services, public housing and a social safety net that radically improved people’s lives.There’s a programme to turn boring patches of grass into community gardens, play corners and outdoor learning centresRelated: Yes, there is an alternative. These people have shown how to ‘take back control’ | Aditya Chakrabortty Continue reading...

At their best, churches are magnificent, calm refuges. They’re no places for trendy pods full of digital nomadsWalking through Camden Town in north London recently – a place whose countercultural relevance dwindled sometime between the Libertines’ first and second albums – I came across a building labelled WORK.LIFE, plus the slogan, “Because life’s too short”.It seemed to symbolise everything that the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher meant when he coined the phrase “boring dystopia”. WORK.LIFE is one of those hubs for freelancers, or “digital nomads” – a handy phrase if that green juice cleanse isn’t providing the quite the level of purging that your body desires. Don’t flush yet, though, there’s more: “Nestled in one of London’s most iconic postcodes, there’s plenty of creative spirit here as well as a punk-rock approach to business.”Related: Justin Welby: no-deal Brexit would harm poorest people in UKRelated: How to save our high streets? The answer is in the church | Simon Jenkins Continue reading...

Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle’s investment strategy was simple, successful and principledThe death on 16 January of Jack Bogle, the founder of the investment company Vanguard Group, was met with a slew of flattering obituaries. Of course, obituaries often praise their subjects. But Bogle’s seemed more laudatory than usual. And I think there is a reason: Bogle was an unusually morally directed man.Of course, we cannot judge his success by his personal wealth. When Bogle established Vanguard in 1975, he set it up as a nonprofit. The company has no outside shareholders; all profits are reflected in lower fees, not dividends. Continue reading...

ILO calls for living wage and union bargaining as automation threatens jobsWorld leaders have been urged by an influential United Nations agency to sign up to a universal labour guarantee to bolster fundamental workers’ rights, including adequate living wages and collective bargaining through trade unions.Designed to address rapid changes in the workplace triggered by the rise of the robot economy and technological automation, the International Labour Organization said a package of measures was required to put the world economy on a sustainable footing for the future.Related: Workers’ rights? Bosses don’t care – soon they’ll only need robots | John Harris Continue reading...

US markets dropped sharply following falls from Europe and Asia as the IMF trimmed its economic forecasts for 2019Stock markets across the world fell Tuesday amid further signs that the global economy is weakening.US markets dropped sharply following falls across Europe and Asia as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) trimmed its economic forecasts for 2019 and 2020 and pointed to risks including trade tensions and rising interest rates. China’s government said its economy grew in 2018 at the slowest pace since 1990.Related: Shareholders received record dividends of almost £100bn in 2018 Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, including appearances from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Mike Pompeo, Sir David Attenborough and New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern

Average weekly earnings were up by 3.4% in November – the biggest rise since July 2008The spending power of British workers increased to its highest level in two years in November following the biggest rise in real pay since September 2016.Average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, rose by 3.3% on the year, the biggest increase since 2008 and well ahead of inflation, which fell to 2.3% in November. Continue reading...

We’re used to chocolate bars shrinking while staying at the same price but it’s happening to many everyday products – and people living with food insecurity are paying the priceIf late capitalism can be boiled down to a social media-friendly phrase, look no further than “shrinkflation” – when goods are made smaller but still sold at exactly the same price. Figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that as many as 206 products were made smaller between September 2015 and June 2017.High-profile examples include Mars shrinking Maltesers, M&Ms and Minstrels by up to 15%, while Birds Eye cut the number of fish fingers in a packet from 12 to 10. The makers of Toblerone sent the internet into frenzy in 2016 after it widened the gap between the distinctive triangular chunks. Last year, after the backlash, it reverted the bar to its original shape – but bigger, and with a higher price. Continue reading...

High street gloom spreads online with worst December sales growth in nearly 20 yearsOnline retailers experienced their worst Christmas sales growth in nearly 20 years in 2018 as shoppers reined in buying electrical goods.Sales rose 3.6% in December compared with growth of almost 12% for 2018 as a whole, according to online retail body IMRG – which does not include Amazon in its figures. IMRG said low consumer confidence had put a dampener on spending. Continue reading...

Business lobby group provides region-by-region breakdown of potential damageNorth-east England would suffer the biggest decline in economic output of any UK region by the middle of the 2030s if the country leaves the EU without a deal, according to an analysis of government figures by Britain’s leading business lobby group.The Confederation of British Industry said the region could be among the hardest hit by a no-deal Brexit in less than 70 days’ time given the high percentage of exports of goods to the EU compared with other parts of the country.Related: No-deal Brexit would put thousands of UK jobs at risk, CBI to warn Continue reading...

Christine Lagarde’s economic health check in Davos hints that Trump should change courseThese days it does not matter how much the US economy is pumped with steroids, if China cannot keep pace, the rest of the world slows down. Even the US begins to stagger.That is the message from the International Monetary Fund, which has supplemented its usual March and October biannual health checks on the global economy with a handy interim report timed to coincide with the Davos business and political leaders’ summit.Related: Davos 2019: Attenborough warns that the Garden of Eden is no more - live! Continue reading...

Rising protectionism and slide in US-China ties fuel pessimism of chief executives, says PwCPessimism among chief executives has risen sharply in the past 12 months as the leaders of the world’s biggest companies have taken fright at rising protectionism and the deteriorating relationship between the US and China.The survey of chief executives conducted by the consultancy firm PwC to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos showed a sixfold increase to 30% in the number of CEOs expecting global growth to slow during 2019.Davos is a Swiss ski resort now more famous for hosting the annual four-day conference for the World Economic Forum. For participants it is a festival of networking. Getting an invitation is a sign you have made it – and the elaborate system of badges reveals your place in the Davos hierarchy.

Escalation of Trump’s trade war with China also a threat, says World Economic OutlookA no-deal Brexit and a sharper slowdown in China are the biggest risks to growth in the global economy in 2019, the International Monetary Fund has warned in its latest economic outlook.Amid already falling levels of growth in Europe, China and Japan, the IMF said an escalation of the trade war between Donald Trump and Beijing over the coming months and the UK tumbling out of the EU without a deal would force further downgrades in its forecasts for growth. Continue reading...

Firms use stealth tactics to offset rising costs and competition on the high streetMore than 200 different consumer products, from toilet roll to chocolate, have shrunk in size as manufacturers and retailers use stealth tactics to offset rising costs and increasing competition on the high street.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, as many as 206 products were made smaller between September 2015 and June 2017 – more than double the number that increased in size. Continue reading...

Fears China may not be able to help shore up weakening global growth as GDP figures are slowest nation has reported in 28 yearsChina’s economy grew 6.6% in 2018, its slowest pace in almost 30 years, confirming a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy that could threaten global growth.After years of breakneck expansion, official data on Monday confirmed that China’s growth in 2018 was the country’s slowest reported rate since 1990 and down from 6.8% in 2017.Related: A burst of good news can’t hide the economic hazards ahead in 2019Related: US-China trade war: is the time ripe for peace to break out? | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

Critics hit out at ministers’ proposed changes that claim to simplify grant distributionMinisters have been accused of a “stitch-up” over proposals to redraw the funding formula for councils in a way critics say will redirect scarce cash from deprived inner cities to affluent Conservative-voting shires.The proposed changes – which include the recommendation that grant allocations should no longer be weighted to reflect the higher costs of poverty and deprivation – come amid increasing concern over the sustainability of local authority finances.Related: Labour-run areas suffer Tory cuts the most. It’s an ignored national scandal | Owen JonesRelated: Tory county council runs out of cash to meet obligations Continue reading...

Global elite at Davos 2019 must do more than talk about real-world problemsDavos this year will be like Hamlet without the prince. Donald Trump was all set to be the star of the show for the second year running but has decided that giving a keynote address to a hall full of billionaires is politically problematical at a time when the US government is shut down.Emmanuel Macron is giving the World Economic Forum a miss for similar reasons. If you have been dubbed the president of the rich the last place you want to be seen is at the annual gathering of the 1%. Theresa May has also decided she has better things to do with her time.Related: Davos 2019: do the global elite have the will to fix the world's problems?A child is dying every two minutes from something that could be easily and cheaply treated Continue reading...

As many world leaders stay away, will any progress be made at ‘family reunion for the people who broke the world’?Political and economic problems loom heavily over the global elite as they gather at Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF). But is there any political will to fix them?Related: Global tensions holding back climate change fight, says WEFThrilled the Duke of Cambridge is taking part in the first ever plenary panel on global mental health @Davos later this month. Thank you @wef for making mental health a priority in 2019. Looking forward to being there for @UnitedGMH asking leaders to make sure 2019 is #timetoact https://t.co/WtSDoF2kahMostrarei nosso desejo de fazer comércio com o mundo todo, prezando pela liberdade econômica, acordos bilaterais e saúde fiscal. Com esses pilares, o Brasil caminhará na direção do pleno emprego e da prosperidade. Espero trazer boas experiências e avanços ao nosso país!she doesn't want to hang out with the *citizens of snow wear* https://t.co/TVRFXO0JXF Continue reading...

Shoshana Zuboff’s new book is a chilling exposé of the business model that underpins the digital world. Observer tech columnist John Naughton explains the importance of Zuboff’s work and asks the author 10 key questionsWe’re living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of printing in circa 1439. And the problem with living through a revolution is that it’s impossible to take the long view of what’s happening. Hindsight is the only exact science in this business, and in that long run we’re all dead. Printing shaped and transformed societies over the next four centuries, but nobody in Mainz (Gutenberg’s home town) in, say, 1495 could have known that his technology would (among other things): fuel the Reformation and undermine the authority of the mighty Catholic church; enable the rise of what we now recognise as modern science; create unheard-of professions and industries; change the shape of our brains; and even recalibrate our conceptions of childhood. And yet printing did all this and more.Why choose 1495? Because we’re about the same distance into our revolution, the one kicked off by digital technology and networking. And although it’s now gradually dawning on us that this really is a big deal and that epochal social and economic changes are under way, we’re as clueless about where it’s heading and what’s driving it as the citizens of Mainz were in 1495.Digital technology is separating the citizens in all societies into two groups: the watchers and the watchedDemocracy has slept, while surveillance capitalists amassed unprecedented concentrations of knowledge and power Continue reading...

Consumer borrowing is falling, which is no bad thing. But it’s uncertainty, not regulation, that’s acting as the brakeA sharp decline in household spending on the never-never, and especially spending on credit cards, is a trend that must surely be welcomed. The Bank of England said last week in its quarterly credit health check that high street banks were about to witness the biggest decline in such borrowing since records began 12 years ago.Threadneedle Street said its index of demand for credit card lending over the three months to the end of March had dropped to -20.7 from -7.2.The shocking element of the story is how much harm a fall in personal lending can cause to the British economy Continue reading...

When the president is proud to close government and proud to slash taxes for the rich, American workers get shaftedOne of the least talked-about consequences of the partial shutdown of the US government – courtesy of Donald “I’m proud to shut down the government” Trump – is its negative effect on the US economy.Related: Republicans’ lack of alarm over the shutdown reveals a disturbing truth | Ross BarkanThe tax-cut steroid wore off within six months of its passageTrumponomics is an abject failure because its premises are flawedRelated: How Trump has changed America in two yearsRobert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. Continue reading...

Doomsayers warn of a slump as early as next year – and it might be too late to prove them wrongAlmost as soon as the world’s most eminent economic doomsayers began to warn about an impending slump, possibly as soon as 2020, policymakers were out of the blocks, racing to avert the worst effects.The new year message from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a string of similarly gloomy commentators struck a chord, apparently within weeks of sounding the alarm that a global recession and possibly a credit crunch to rival 2008’s was on the way.Related: What are biggest risks to the global economy in 2019? | Kenneth Rogoff Continue reading...

Globalisation, populism and Brexit are among the issues at the World Economic ForumPolitical and economic problems loom heavily over the global elite as they gather at Davos for the World Economic Forum. But is there any political will to fix them?Related: Global tensions holding back climate change fight, says WEFThrilled the Duke of Cambridge is taking part in the first ever plenary panel on global mental health @Davos later this month. Thank you @wef for making mental health a priority in 2019. Looking forward to being there for @UnitedGMH asking leaders to make sure 2019 is #timetoact https://t.co/WtSDoF2kahMostrarei nosso desejo de fazer comércio com o mundo todo, prezando pela liberdade econômica, acordos bilaterais e saúde fiscal. Com esses pilares, o Brasil caminhará na direção do pleno emprego e da prosperidade. Espero trazer boas experiências e avanços ao nosso país!she doesn't want to hang out with the *citizens of snow wear* https://t.co/TVRFXO0JXF Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Dutch exporters warn of major delivery problems if Britain crashes out of the EUMeet Brexit’s latest potential victim: the Mother’s Day bouquet. While the tumult in Westminster is keeping political pundits in clover, the decision by MPs to vote down Theresa May’s deal this week has sent petals flying among Dutch exporters, who are responsible for 80% of the flowers sold in British shops.As the risk of a no-deal Brexit was raised, LTO Nederland, the organisation that represents Dutch agricultural producers, formally warned its members of major problems if they do not get products into the UK before Brexit day on 29 March.Related: Businesses to demand emergency measures if MPs reject Brexit deal Continue reading...

Gloomy end to year for retailers but sales growth for 2018 as a whole was up on 2017British consumers reined in their spending in December after splashing out during November on Black Friday promotions, according to official figures that confirmed the tough festive shopping period on the high street.The Office for National Statistics said the quantity of goods bought last month fell by 0.9% compared to November, when Black Friday deals encouraged shoppers to bring forward some of their Christmas spending. Continue reading...

UK lenders predict falling demand for credit cards and mortgages, as Brexit crisis rolls on

Lords report accuses ministers of ‘inflation shopping’ with tactical use of RPI and CPIStudents and rail passengers have been unfairly penalised by the government using a “flawed” measure of inflation that needs to be urgently fixed, according to a highly critical report from peers.Ministers have been able to use a tactic of “inflation shopping” to select the retail prices index measure of inflation when it stands to benefit the exchequer, and the typically lower consumer prices index to keep a lid on outgoings, the House of Lords economic affairs committee said.Related: Student loans: use of RPI costs graduates up to £16,000Related: Rail users to mount 'national day of action' over 3.1% fare rise Continue reading...

It’s not plausible that either Brexit in name only or no exit at all can lead to radical reform of our broken systemThe pound rose, and all was calm on the stock market. As far as the financial markets were concerned, the message was clear: the voting down by MPs of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement means a delayed Brexit, a softer Brexit or perhaps no Brexit at all. Those with serious wealth in Britain have always been worried that Brexit will lead to radical change. They now think that there will be a perpetuation of the status quo – or something not far removed from it. Hence the pound getting stronger.There’s no question that opting for the quiet life has its attractions. There would be a boost to the economy as companies decided to push ahead with investment plans that had been delayed while the outcome of Brexit was uncertain. And, of course, any economic costs of no deal would be avoided. Continue reading...

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has told MPs that UK banks can cope with disorderly Brexit, but investors believe it’s less likely following Tuesday’s vote

Drop in fuel and clothing prices spur drop to 2.1%, offering respite to consumersUK inflation fell to its lowest level in nearly two years in December after a drop in petrol prices offered some respite to consumers who are reining in spending as Brexit looms.The annual rate dipped to 2.1% from 2.3% in November, the weakest since January 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics. Economists said the drop reduced the likelihood that the Bank of England would raise interest rates in the near future.Inflation is when prices rise. Deflation is the opposite – price decreases over time – but inflation is far more common.Up Continue reading...