It's been reported today that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has started a consultation on potential changes to the calculation of the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
The Government has already changed the measure which it uses for the uprating of a range of benefits and pensions, largely in an attempt to reduce the apparent rate of inflation and consequently to reduce Government spending. This latest reassessment of the RPI is another attempt to do the same, as the probable outcome is to produce a new-style RPI which increases more slowly than does the current measure.
For a simple person such as myself, inflation is, surely, inflation. To have different measures and different methods of calculation is nonsense. Some chap on the radio has just 'explained' that there are many problems with the calculation of what might be called real inflation and the ONS is merely trying to find a better formula to use.
One wonders why the new formula will be any more accurate than the old. We all know that certain costs are roaring ahead - petrol, fares, food, etc. - and for the ONS, which is simply an agency of the Government, to try to con us into believeing that inflation is lower than we know it to be is disingenuous in the extreme.
The old adage about 'lies, damned lies and statistics' has never been more appropriate and no Government has ever been more duplicitous in its actions.
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