Burnham’s talk of ‘breathing space’ at odds with reality of future Bank rate rises

PM’s push to cut cost of living threatened by rising inflation and government borrowing costs as geopolitics hit home

Bank of England holds interest rates

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Good luck to Andy Burnham convincing voters he is giving them “breathing space”, if the Bank of England ratchets up interest rates in the coming months.

That was the prospect opened up by Thursday’s minutes of the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting, which left rates unchanged at 3.75% – for now – but suggested policymakers may be unlikely to hold out much longer.