This is a series of cb-s I in the world. I'm John Batchew with my colleague and friend Joseph Sternberg,

member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. He's based in London. He writes political economics. We've been the with it's more expensive than it used to be and so we're looking now at how the

United Kingdom is dealing with its grocery stores. I'm learning names.

Joe's teaching me.

There are new stores that are said to be doing well in Middle England.

Middle England's grocers have cut prices and offered promotions to win over new shoppers.

Just as falling inflation eases pressure on household finances.

This is from Bloomberg, UK within these last hours.

I was heartened by that. It sounded like good news.

However, Joe, have you noticed they're cutting prices at the grocery store?

Have you noticed that people are happier when they shop because I haven't here.

I wouldn't necessarily say the prices are coming down,

although I have noticed over the past couple of months the prices seem to be stabilizing.

So I think that there is something to that and you know the broader

picture here is that we do now seem to have a decrease in the consumer price index

it rose about 3.4% over the year in February, down from 4% in January.

So I think that there is positive movement, but remember the point that we've made all along is that as the

inflation rate comes down that doesn't actually mean prices are falling.

It just means that they are rising less rapidly than they did before.

So you know whereas a year ago every month or two when I would go into

the supermarket it seemed like the prices and various things had increased noticeably.

Now maybe you go three months before you see the next noticeable price increase in something instead of six weeks.

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