Simon Lambert

And then it turns out that perhaps we should have actually listened to them in some way.

The other thing I will say to on Helen's point is, yeah.

I can definitely see a scenario where rents go up by more over the long term due to this.

This thing where the rent rises is going to be limited to not above excessive market value type things.

Landlords are just going to look at how much rents are going up by on average or inflation or another figure that they can justify and then put rent up by that much.

Because why wouldn't you?

And so over the long term, there's quite a strong possibility that that's going to be higher than the average you would have otherwise seen.

And these things compound.

And once you stretch that out over five years or 10 years, then it does add up because we've seen this before where limits are imposed on things.

People go up to the limit.

Yes, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted by 8 to 1 to leave interest rates on hold at 3.75%.

There was a dissenting voice from Chief Economist Hugh Pill, who voted for an increase to 4%.

That crazy guy.

Seven of the eight remaining members signalled to a greater or lesser extent that rates may have to rise, though, with some suggesting the bank may act forcefully.

So this is bad news for people who have mortgages.

Logically, you would think that there would be no point in the Bank of England raising interest rates to deal with an inflation shock triggered by something that has already happened and involves the rising oil price and the Strait of Hormuz and Iran and Donald Trump, which are things that the Bank of England has literally no control over.

However, what the Bank of England does in the Monetary Policy Committee when it's moving interest rates is it's trying to make sure that we hit our 2% inflation target and it's looking forwards, not backwards.

And it's trying to make sure that inflationary expectations don't get embedded into consumers' and businesses' minds anymore.

and basically businesses start hiking their prices in expectation that inflation is going to be higher, thus feeding inflation.

Consumers expect inflation to be higher.