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Hello and welcome to Political Thinking. In a week which feels ever so slightly back to

the future, ask me what a year ago and I thought that the politics of the post pandemic,

not that we're quite there yet, would be the politics maybe of the 1980s of soaring unemployment

of concern about jobs. This week it feels instead more like the politics of the 70s. The cost

of living is back, inflation is back, it's prices that once again are worrying, those who

want our votes.

The Deputy Prime Minister, as said, the solution is for people to work harder. So can he

tell us how many days a worker on the minimum wage would have to work this year in order

to afford a night at Luxury Hotel, saying creep.

If she wants to talk about taxes and easing the burden on the lowest paid, I remind her,

whenever a Labour party has gone into government, the economy has no dive, unemployment is

a sword and taxes have gone through the roof.

That was the deputies, Angela Rainer and Dominic Rob Clashing at PMQs. Inflation, long term,

is bad for government, it erodes savings, it creates divisions. Short term though, and

I think this is often forgotten, is it fairly addictive? If perhaps your wages are going

up, if you're one of those lucky enough to be earning 45 or 50K for driving around the

country in a lorry, if your house is going up in price, if you're lucky enough to own

one, if in short you feel you're getting richer, in the short term you may rather like inflation.

Now it feels back to the future in another way this week in politics.

Well, we're going to talk about trade in the future and we're going to have to work

that through. What we're wanting to do is make solid incremental steps on trade. The

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