Giant Inflation

My parents used to tell me a fairy tale about the ‘bad old days’ of inflation in Britain. In this story, which took place at the very beginnings of my life, in the 1970’s, there was a wicked giant, ‘inflation’ which terrorized the land with high and rising prices until a brave middle-aged woman called Margaret came to slay it.

There was a historical context to this fairy tale: the great oil shock of the 1970’s, with prices quadrupling (x4), as a result of dictators’ wars in Israel and the dependence on Middle East oil. Transport prices rose, and the cost of goods as a result of this. At the same time, in (then industrial) Britain the unions were so strong that they immediately demanded pay increases for workers to…