As inflation hit a 16-year high on Tuesday, one member of the monetary policy committee offered a brutally bracing reality check. Price rises, said Andrew Sentance, would be curbed and inflation brought under control only when household incomes had been squeezed, economic growth reduced and unemployment raised.

Addressing a pensions conference in Windsor, he left his audience in no doubt that Britain must get used to living with a protracted period of economic hardship. In common with the majority of economists, he believes the rise in oil, food and metal prices is based on supply and demand and not on speculation.