When the ONS and Bank of England were forecasting inflation at 5 per cent just six months ago, The Economic Times was predicting double-digit inflation. There is an inevitability that inflation would hit about 10 per cent this year. We predicted August. Perhaps we were being optimistic. We also predicted a recession followed by stagflation.

UK inflation has now officially hit its highest level in more than 40 years in April.  Soaring gas and electricity bills along with food and clothing helped push prices up 9 per cent from a year earlier.

For the first time, today, the Financial Times is starting to agree with our view by saying this – “With economic activity slowing sharply during the first quarter of the year, the UK economy is suffering its worst bout of stagflation — weak growth alongside high inflation — since the second oil shock of the 1970s.  The sharp rise in the cost of living will add to pressure on chancellor Rishi Sunak to accelerate his promised measures to help poorer families and pensioners cope with prices rising much faster than their incomes.”

Our prediction was made clear.

For Europe, this coming winter is the stuff of nightmares for politicians. The cost-of-living crisis will spike again dragging millions more families into the heat-or-eat dilemma. The response won’t be a few shouty people waving some homemade placards – it’ll be riots in capitals all over Western economies. Stagflation is coming at the same time because of it all. That means both recession and inflation.

There is another reality that has not been factored in. If the war in Ukraine continues into the winter, the price that British households will have to pay for heating will continue to rise. Inflation will continue at or around a peak of 10 per cent. This being the case, worse is to come.

“This is a war economy – a different one than we have known before, but a war economy it is. It can’t be left to the petty whims of Boris Johnson and the acolytes of his tragic comedy of errors. It’s clear Chancellor Rishi Sunak has no idea what to do in this type of economic environment – he’s a banker more worried about his wife’s tax status than the future of our country. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is preparing herself for a leadership contest by spending taxpayers’ cash on photoshoots. The Home Secretary is now fighting legal battles against the deportation of migrants in small boats. Britain needs grown-ups in the room, not political lightweights in such dire circumstances. The country needs to be told what we are really facing in a few months’ time – and get prepared for it.”