Two Nations Divided by an Uncommon Inflation
The UK and US are under pressure to hold the line on rising prices, but the severity and expectations of a pivot aren’t the same.
Margaret Thatcher spent her tenure as prime minister wrestling with inflation.
Photographer: PA Images/Getty
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British consumer price inflation is back into double figures for the first time in almost 32 years. Margaret Thatcher was still prime minister when this landmark was last achieved. For the last time retail price inflation was this high, we need to go back even further, to a point when Thatcher, under intense pressure, had famously denied that she was about to execute a U-turn on economic policy. British inflation was last at its current 12.4% in February 1981, the month that Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer: