John Stepek

Because if you're going to look at the wages, there's still some base effects from the public sector stuff.

But now the private sector is rising about 3.2 it was, isn't it?

And so you're basically talking about wages being flat to falling in real terms.

And that's never great for consumption or for people's mood, apart from anything else.

But the other thing I thought was interesting was, and I don't, the job state is a bit ropey anyway, and the ONS has admitted that.

But construction sector, wages are like down significantly.

like 0.6% year on year in nominal terms.

Exactly.

I find what's happening with the building sector in this country at the moment just actually quite staggering.

Every number you look at, it's through the floor.

Yeah, it's pretty dramatic.

And that sort of does take us on to the inflation figures.

Because the other thing I thought was interesting, we both had a bit of a moan about it.

In fact, everyone's had a bit of a moan about this this week.

The idea that we should have this voluntary agreement to fix prices on groceries.

Because one thing I thought was interesting about the inflation figures is that the reason it came in below the 3%

is primarily because energy bills went down this month relative.

And that's because we've got this quarterly price cap.

And also because the chancellor had given 150 quid to the kind of poor household.

So we actually have literally got price fixing that has kept inflation to a surprisingly low level in theory.