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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's daily politics podcast.

I'm Cindy you and I'm joined by Michael Simmons, our data editor and Katie Boes.

Now Michael this week, if the Bank of England has increased its base rate again,

tell us about what it has decided to do and why is this significant?

So the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee that sets interest rates yesterday

height rates for the 14th time in a row to 5.25% and they're really doing this because of the

battle that the countries had with inflation over the last year.

Now markets think they're reaching the sort of towards the end of their hiking cycle,

markets predict that it might go up maybe one or two more times to about 5.75%

and they've done this because they're trying to get inflation under control.

They also released some forecasts along with their rate setting and one of those presented

some good news for Rishi Sunak. It showed that inflation they think has let it come down to about

5% by the end of the year. They also talked about growth though and they said that although we're

probably going to avoid a recession, they expect the next three years growth is going to be,

you know, effectively flat and near zero. So a mixed picture from Bank of England yesterday.

Now Katie, just on inflation, that's one of the Prime Minister's five pledges from early

in the year, is it going to be one of the feet that he actually manages to achieve?

If this forecast is correct then it is looking up perhaps the safest bet.

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