Inside Politics: Past the peak?

ONS publishes inflation figures for November as prime minister’s migrant plan criticised by United Nations, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

Hello there, I’m Matt Mathers and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

MPs and staff are being moved out of their offices as parliament’s heating system struggles to cope with the cold.

Bless their cotton socks. If anyone has tips on how early morning newsletter writers can stay warm without the heating on please do get in touch.

Inside the bubble

Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will do battle at the last session of prime minister’s questions before parliament’s Christmas recess. The wave of strikes will loom large. Cobra, the government’s emergency committee, will meet for the second time to discuss measures to limit the impact of the industrial action.

MPs will debate the war in Ukraine. Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, will make his first appearance before the home affairs select committee since taking up the post. Elsewhere on the committee corridor, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, will be quizzed about his Bill of Rights Bill and the transport committee will hold a one-off session with the (rightly) much criticised northern rail operators.

Daily briefing

Inflation nation

Have we hit peak inflation? Earlier this morning, the Office for National Statistics published November’s figures, showing that rising prices – while still sky-high – fell to 10.7 per cent, down from 11.1 per cent in October.

The drop, sharper than economists had expected, follows a fall in the price of petrol and diesel and comes just a day after the US published its figures showing inflation appears to be slowing across the pond too.

Despite overall inflation appearing to slow in the UK, food prices are still surging up by 16.4 per cent on annual basis last month – while power bills are still painfully high, despite government support. Grant Fitzner, the ONS’s chief economist, said that while prices continue to rise they are doing so “by less than this time last year, with the most notable example of this being motor fuels.”

“Tobacco and clothing prices also rose, but again by less than we saw this time last year, he added. “This was partially offset by prices in restaurants, cafes and pubs, which went up this year compared to falling a year ago.”

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, warned that inflation remains “the number one enemy” and that bringing it down is his top priority. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said her party would “get our economy growing, so that living standards can go up and so we can lead on the global stage.”

The figures come ahead of the Bank of England’s interest rate decision on tomorrow, when it is expected to heap further misery on households with another increase, with a likely rise from 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent to rein in surging inflation.

It also comes as postal workers start a 48-hour strike in a row over pay and conditions, with ministers continuing to insist that too high wage rises could lead to inflation becoming baked in.

(PA)

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Small boats

Since taking office, Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, has made tackling Channel crossings his number one priority.

And yesterday he announced plans to return thousands of Albanians to their home country, speed up asylum processing, make it harder to claim modern slavery, open reception centres to get 10,000 migrants out of hotels and prosecute more people for steering dinghies.

But critics condemned the measures as “cruel, ineffective and unlawful” while the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) appealed to Britain “uphold its legal obligations”.

Several MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, raised concern at a new hurdle of “objective evidence” required from victims of modern slavery seeking help from the Home Office.

Today’s cartoon

See all of The Independent’s daily cartoons here

(Dave Brown)

On the record

Theresa May, the former PM, raises concerns about Sunak’s migration plan.

“Modern slavery is a very real and current threat. We must do nothing to diminish our world-leading protections for the victims of this terrible, horrific crime.”

From the Twitterati

Jim Pickard, Financial Times chief politics correspondent, on reports Labour will win a 314-seat majority at next election.

“Not sure this is a ‘humiliating revelation’ when it almost certainly won’t happen.”

Essential reading

• Sean O’Grady, The Independent: Rishi Sunak will be looking at the latest warnings from the Bank of England and wincing
• John Rentoul, The Independent: PM’s asylum plan poses a problem for Keir Starmer
• Polly Toynbee, The Guardian: Who do you believe – the brilliant NHS staff who treated my cancer, or ministers who spin and lie?
• Daniel Finkelstein, The Times: Kanye West, Hitler, and why his music must play on

Inside Politics first appeared in our daily morning email. You can sign up via this link.