TORY ministers are “utterly failing to bring down inflation with no end in sight to the cost-of-living nightmare,” the labour movement warned today as new figures showed food prices are rising at their fastest rate for nearly half a century.

A doubling in olive oil costs and significant increases in milk and ready meal prices saw food inflation hit an eye-watering 19.1 per cent last month — the sharpest year-on-year rise for a single month since August 1977 —  the Office for National Statistics announced.

The consumer prices index inflation rate fell back to its January level of 10.1 per cent after a shock 0.3 per cent increase in February, but it remains stubbornly high, with most economists expecting the figure to have already dropped below 10 per cent.