The Economic shock of Brexit
 

Is it finally kicking in?


A possible 5 per cent rise in food prices on the way next year

Britain’s biggest supermarket has warned that dearer food prices triggered by the plunge in the value of the pound will have a lethal impact on poor families worst affected by the expected jump in inflation over the next two years.

Although a price war among the leading food retailers has so far blunted the impact of more expensive imports on grocery bills, Tesco’s UK chief executive, Matt Davies, said rising prices would be “toxic” for consumers if stores found that they had to pass on extra costs.

Official figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the annual inflation rate rising from 0.6% to 1% in September, its highest for almost two years.

The ONS said the cost of living had yet to be much affected by the drop in the value of the pound seen since the EU referendum, but the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund and City economists believe that inflation will rise above the government’s 2% target in early 2017 and will reach at least 3% by the end of the year.

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Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, said the decision by the government in the 2015 summer budget to freeze welfare benefits for the whole of the current parliament meant that 11.5 million families would be an additional £2 a week worse off as a result of higher than anticipated inflation.

The IFS said that families already stood to lose £260 a year as a result of George Osborne’s attempt to reduce the UK’s welfare budget, but they would now see their real incomes drop by £360 a year.

Davies said: “Everybody should be very, very clear how damaging food inflation is to the economy, to retail businesses and manufacturing businesses and how lethal it could be for millions of people struggling to live from week to week.”


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He spoke out after Tesco became embroiled in a public spat with one of its main suppliers, Unilever, after the maker of brands including Marmite and Persil demanded an across the board 10% rise in prices in light of the devaluation of the pound after the the EU referendum.

The two companies reached an agreement on Friday after it emerged that Tesco was running low on stocks of more than 20 popular Unilever brands because the supplier halted deliveries when the supermarket would not agree to its price demand.

Davies, who was speaking at the Big Debate conference organised by grocery industry body IGD, said it was clear there were inflationary forces in the UK after the Brexit vote but would not say whether they would feed through to price rises on supermarket shelves.

“Our role is to do everything we can do to prevent food inflation which is not good for business and highly toxic for consumers,” said Davies, who joined Tesco from car parts and bicycle retailer Halfords 18 months ago.

City analysts warned that the jump in consumer prices last month marked the first of many increases that would push inflation towards 3% next year.

Some said it was clear weaker sterling was having an effect, especially on the rising cost of imported clothes and footwear, though the ONS played down the overall impact, saying there was no “explicit evidence” it was having a significant impact on consumer prices.

We will need Arista's hot food deals :omgno:

:laugh:

It will only continue in the same trend. But we're not supposed to say that as we "don't know yet". I don't know when we ARE allowed to make a judgement call :joker:. In 5 years time if food/fuel prices have doubled and the pound is worth junk, the same people will still be saying we need to "wait and see"...

It has only been a few months. Any mayor change such as Brexit is bound to have a roller-coaster effect initially - it is far too early to 'predict' doom and gloom in the long-term. An easy position to take for those opposed to Brexit.

Doom and gloom in the long term is fine to ignore, it will be harder to ignore a 5per cent rise in your food bill next year

It's to be expected, news of the Brexit sent the pound plummeting like it never has before so I dread to think what's going to happen when we actually leave.

There were also plenty of positives regarding the economy and investments since Brexit.

The whole 'Pound in free fall' thing overshadows any minor benefits tbh.

If so, the pound fluctuates and the 'free fall' may only be a relatively short-term effect. A few months is nowhere near enough time to make a long-term judgement on Brexit.

And these so called benefits are not testament to it's potential future success either.

I'd place more stock in what the experts are saying though and what most of them are saying is rather worrying.

http://i.imgur.com/lLIImqA.jpg

Pound vs the Dollar. If you genuinely have zero concerns and think this is normal fluctuation then, frankly, you don't understand what fluctuation looks like on a graph :shrug:.

Not really a rollercoaster. More like being stuck on an escalator to the floor below for a few months.

No need to be so patronising I am quite capable of understanding a simple graph, thanks!

And no at this stage I don't have any significant concerns. However some remainers will continue to paint a bleak picture for obvious reasons.

The obvious reasons being that Brexit is concerning and we're here because 52% of the population has had quite enough of professionals?

lol

stock market up 13% british steel saved unemployent down , new trade deals, less insane sme red tape , happy days

Stock market is measured in sterling of course its gone up, jfc.

"I've got good news and bad news."

"What's the good news?"

"Your stocks have gone up 13%!"

"AMAZING! So what's the bad news?"

"The value of the currency has gone down 13%. Your stock is worth exactly the same in real terms :hee:"

The projected “black hole” in Britain’s finances as a result of the Brexit vote is roughly in line with projections made by George Osborne a week before the referendum and denounced as a “brazen smear” by campaigners to leave the European Union.

The then chancellor of the exchequer, sharing a stage with his Labour predecessor Alistair Darling, said on June 15 the public finances would take a 30 billion-pound ($37 billion) hit if Britain voted to leave. The Office for Budget Responsibility projects the U.K. will have to borrow 21.9 billion pounds in 2020, compared with the 10.4 billion-pound surplus predicted in March.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...rexit-warnings

Good thing we didn't fall for project fear eh chaps

:joker:

Let's be honest, leaver or remain, do you really think this government (or any government) are actually capable of pulling of a Brexit deal that will bring us into a new golden age? (or hell, even back to normality?) Do you really think David Davis is a match for every single member state's negotiators? If we Brexit like this, we're just ****ing ourselves over.

The ftse 100 likes a low pound because most of the Companies on the ftse 100 operate outside the UK so gain bigtime from a low pound, the low pound feeds in and hits the UK internally more eventually.

The point is, what we heard from the now present Chancellor in yesterdays statement, is a fair bit of what we heard as to being called scaremongering during the EU vote.

The point is, I would say a lot expected article 50 to be triggered within weeks and certainly by the end of this year after that vote.
That has not happened,it seems a fair bit is now still expected from the govt. what was said once we do trigger it,whenever next year, if it does get triggered.

Then we will really see who was possibly more right or wrong as to what happens to the economy.