Ann Widdecombe, who joined the Reform UK party this year, made the comments when she was asked what she would say to consumers who could not afford to pay for basics such as the ingredients of a cheese sandwich. The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, Sarah Olney, said: “How out of touch can you get? Ann Widdecombe joins a long line of rightwing politicians who pin the blame on hard-working families for this government’s failures."
“The problem is we’ve been decades now without inflation, we’ve come to regard it as some kind of given right.”
Just a note to Ms. Widdecombe’s interpretation of Inflation rates in the United Kingdom:
The inflation rate for consumer prices in the United Kingdom moved over the past 62 years between 0.4% and 24.2%. For 2022, an inflation rate of 7.9% was calculated.
During the observation period from 1960 to 2022, the average inflation rate was 5.2% per year. Overall, the price increase was 2,052.01%. An item that cost 100 pounds in 1960 costs 2,152.01 pounds at the beginning of 2023.
For March 2023, the year-over-year inflation rate was 8.9%. This includes energy (+39.7%) and food (+19.2%).