Tanya Dando

So about 60 percent, for instance, of China's exports to Europe and Africa pass through Dubai.

This, I think, gives an indication of

how central dubai has become to global trade so when ports like jabarali are not able to to function it means that food and other commodities don't get where they need to go and this really is is a problem for countries in the region as well as countries for instance like sudan

parts of Africa and South Asia that depend upon those kind of logistics nodes as ways of delivering food and humanitarian supplies.

So again, this is another example of these kind of unforeseen consequences of this complex global system.

The average household in the UK spends about 10% of their household income on food.

Now that is much lower than it was 50, 60 years ago.

We've gotten used to sort of cheaper food.

But even now, if you look at lower income households, they all spend 20 to 25%.

of their household income on food.

So it becomes a particular problem for lower-income households.

And that obviously becomes, you know, a problem both economically, it becomes a problem politically.

People feel that they are struggling to buy the basics.

And, you know, if you put food together with energy, and those two things are linked, as we've discussed...

If I'm spending more money on energy and those energy prices are feeding into spending more money on food, then you've got a double whammy, which is hitting incomes and fuels this idea that households aren't getting any better off.

In fact, they're going backwards rather than forwards.

And that is a very toxic sensation for households to have for politicians, incumbent politicians.

I think what's really concerning about this coming period is that the Energy Climate Intelligence Unit published some data which basically showed that if the Food and Drink Federation's forecasts are correct and we're at 9% inflation by the end of the year, we will have experienced, since mid-2022, a 50% increase in food prices over that period.

So that's about four years and five months.

What they looked at then is how long it took for prices to rise by 50 percent in the years preceding that.