The State of the Nation

In an age of lower expectations, things are going better. The world is clearly convinced that the country is back in the hands of people who are sane and competent managers. We think we'll just avoid technical recession, but the economy is flat. Inflation is very sticky. Core inflation is not coming down as fast as anybody would like. It's still a view that we will within the next couple of months start to see inflation falling substantially. So things are stable. When you listen to particularly ministers talking, they'll talk about inflation coming down as if that price is coming down. And the cost of living issue remained deeply troubling, and diplomatic in the UK.