ANDREW MURRAY surveys a quaking continent whose leaders have no idea how to respond to an openly contemptuous United States
It isn’t higher wages for workers that fuel inflation
With calls to hold back wages growing louder, JAMES MEADWAY explains that the real sources of inflation today are from the huge disruptions caused by Covid-19, and the growing costs of an unstable environment

A COMBINATION of rising inflation and the first glimmerings of worker resistance are bringing some old elite fears back to the surface.
Ben Broadbent, of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, responsible for setting interest rates, told the Financial Times this week that he was concerned there was an “upside risk” that workers will demand higher pay increases.
Elsewhere, the Treasury has warned that higher public-sector pay “could lead to permanently higher prices.”
More from this author

Already the extremism of the new Argentinian president’s administration is being watered down in the face of reality – but now the Chinese central bank has cut funding it could be in serious trouble, writes JAMES MEADWAY

JAMES MEADWAY looks at the multiple emerging crises, most linked to climate change, that will lead to price rises for consumers and bumper profits for big business. The solutions, however, are simple

An early adherent of free-market fundamentalism, at Thatcher's side throughout her most damaging years, Lawson attacked our unions, industry and the very fabric of our society, writes JAMES MEADWAY

The Bank of England has been swinging its interest rate bludgeon for the last year, and the wreckage is starting to pile up, warns JAMES MEADWAY
Similar stories

‘The Bank of England must act decisively and cut rates to get the UK economy back on track,’ IPPR says

What was once common sense to both major parties – that we all pay a little of our wages to receive a pension when we are too old to work – has been viciously undermined by decades of neoliberalism, explains NICK WRIGHT