Britain’s big squeeze has got even worse today after the Bank of England raised interest rates by 0.5% – the highest single rise since 1997 – adding £1,000-a-year or more to the average mortgage.
Officials on the monetary policy committee (MPC) raised the base rate from 1.25 per cent to 1.75 per cent as experts warned inflation could be heading for 15 per cent.
The Bank of England insists today’s rise is necessary to try to bring down inflation by next year – but it comes as Britons face the worse squeeze on household budgets for a generation. And in more bad news the Bank said the UK will enter five consecutive quarters of recession with gross domestic product falling as much as 2.1%.
Food, fuel, gas and numerous other items are rocketing in price – and some economists have claimed the BofE have been too slow to act as Britain heads towards recession.
Today’s rise is the largest since the Bank gained independence from the Treasury in 27 years, and the first 0.5 percentage point…
