Heather Middlehurst

The most weasel game of words with inflation you'll ever witness - guaranteed! I've transcribed the whole thing and bolded the really bad bit. (Sorry, long. Please expand tweet.) LauraK: "When do you think people will start to think 'you know what, maybe we are through the worst of this squeeze'?" Jeremy Hunt: "When we get inflation down, and when interest rates can start to fall. Because there's a lot of pressure on families with mortgages." LK: "But that may be a long way off." JH: "But what people want from their Chancellor, what people want from their Prime Minister, is not people who are going to take the easy decisions, but people who are going to take the right decisions for the long term of the British economy. That's what we're doing. And we can see the plan is working. Inflation is coming down-" LK: "Well, it may go up. The Bank of England think it has gone up in August. Do you accept that?" JH: "Well, I do think we may see a blip in inflation in September. But after that, the BoE are saying it will fall down to about 5%. And you know, if we're going to put money in peoples' pockets quickly, the fastest thing I can do is deliver the Prime Minister's pledge to halve inflation. Because that puts not one pence in the pound, which might be a tax cut, but five pence in the pound in peoples' pockets that they wouldn't have had if inflation stays high." ---- So the trick Hunt is playing is to compare future inflation of 5% to hypothetical future inflation of 10%, and then claim that because 5% is less than 10% and therefore prices go up less (they go up, but less) that represents a "saving". It's like saying "Today, this TV is £100. Next week we will reprice it at £110." And then a short while later saying "You know what, we'll only increase it to £105. So you'll save £5." Deceit of the highest order. There's no actual saving. Prices are still rising. In the TV example, it still cost £5 more. (The "£5 less than £10" line of reasoning is nonsense, because the £110 price never happened.)