The Chancellor will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning as inflation holds steady. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that CPI in May remained at 2.8 per cent – the same as in April.

That news is welcome and goes against the grain of economic analysis, which had forecast a rise to 3 per cent. The fall in April was largely deemed to be artificial, thanks to last year’s massive increase in regulated and inflation-linked utility bills falling out of the series.

However, that did not come to pass. According to the ONS, a rise in transport costs, thanks to........

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