Energy disruption abroad drives prices at home, showing how few safeguards are built in – which is why a call for resilience must be heeded
When the Bank of England warned this week that food inflation could reach 7% by the end of the year, it revealed how little stands between a geopolitical jolt and a domestic crisis in Britain. A shock wave in the Gulf feeds through energy, fertiliser and supermarket prices into falling incomes, weak growth and job losses. What it exposes is not just inflation but a system unable to absorb disruption.
The Bank is right that interest rates cannot move global energy prices. Raising them will not fix the shock. Instead, rate hikes redistribute the impact by compressing wages and deterring investment to stop higher costs becoming embedded. What appears as inflation is, in reality, the price of dependence on the strait of Hormuz. Clearly, the UK’s stability rests on security that the country that has yet to build into its infrastructure.
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Continue reading…Energy disruption abroad drives prices at home, showing how few safeguards are built in – which is why a call for resilience must be heededWhen the Bank of England warned this week that food inflation could reach 7% by the end of the year, it revealed how little stands between a geopolitical jolt and a domestic crisis in Britain. A shock wave in the Gulf feeds through energy, fertiliser and supermarket prices into falling incomes, weak growth and job losses. What it exposes is not just inflation but a system unable to absorb disruption.The Bank is right that interest rates cannot move global energy prices. Raising them will not fix the shock. Instead, rate hikes redistribute the impact by compressing wages and deterring investment to stop higher costs becoming embedded. What appears as inflation is, in reality, the price of dependence on the strait of Hormuz. Clearly, the UK’s stability rests on security that the country that has yet to build into its infrastructure.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading…
