BRITISH inflation surged last month to its highest annual rate since 1982, piling pressure on finance minister Rishi Sunak to step up his help for households facing a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Consumer price inflation hit 9% in April, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, surpassing the peaks of the early 1990s recession that many Britons remember for sky-high interest rates and widespread mortgage defaults.
Reuters’ poll of economists had pointed to a reading of 9.1%.
Britain now has the highest inflation rate of Europe’s five biggest economies and almost certainly the Group of Seven countries, with Canada and Japan yet to report figures for April. Neither are likely to match Britain’s price growth.- bbc.com