Inflation Climbs to 3.5% as Government Borrowing Hits a One-Year High — Who Needs a Budget Anyway?

Prices rose 3.5% in the year to September, up from 3.1%, according to the Office for National Statistics, the body that counts this stuff so the rest of us don’t have to. Inflation is the rate at which the same shopping basket gets more expensive. At 3.5%, a £50 weekly food shop now costs £51.75. That sounds like a rounding error until you notice the supermarket has started charging a fee for the trolley.

Meanwhile, government borrowing is at its highest level in a year ahead of next week’s Budget, the annual event where the Chancellor explains how the money will be found. Public borrowing means the state spending more than it collects in tax and covering the gap with loans. Officials insist this is all in hand. Officials also said that about the trolley.

Ministers have made the household budget redundant. Why track your spending when the Treasury is doing it for you, one spreadsheet at a time, while the Bank of England quietly sets your mortgage rate? Economists call this coordination. Your bank balance calls it a mystery.

So what does this mean for you? Not much this week, which is exactly the problem. Inflation never announces itself. It just turns up in the price of petrol and the cost of a takeaway. Check your direct debits, because the government has made it clear it will not be checking them for you.