Cost of living: Inflation hits 40-year high as food prices rise

Inflation is the bad news that keeps on coming. Today’s figures show that it has crept up again to just over 9 per cent, the worst in four decades.

But behind that headline number others even more alarming ones lurk – like a 32 per cent increase in the price of petrol and double digits for staple foods like bread and meat.

Inflation is a global ogre but it is worse here than in the rest of the G7 and is expected to last longer. It has also hits the poorest hardest. So what now?