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Fickle Britons ditch pitta for garlic bread
Tue, 07 Feb, 2012
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Fickle Britons ditch pitta for garlic bread
Mon, 15 Mar 2010, 13:59:00
Garlic bread and lip gloss are in, pitta bread and lipstick are out, following the latest revisions to the basket of goods used to calculate UK inflation. In its annual review, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has decided that a range of familiar goods and services are no longer representative of the cost of living here. Digital and mobile phone photography has done away with the need for disposable cameras, bottled fruit drinks have forced the exclusion of cartons, and the trusty hairdryer is replaced by electrical hair straighteners. The success of Blu-ray has led to the inclusion of disc players this time, while computer games with accessories also find their way in. Busy Britons are picking up so many small bottles of mineral water the ONS has decided to add it to the list and liquid soap replaces a bar of soap for the first time. The ONS updates the basket each year in order to better reflect public spending habits. It then collects 180,000 price quotations in around 150 areas across the UK, from which it calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Retail Price Index (RPI). Another big change to the RPI measure will be a much wider range of mortgage rates. Previously, just the standard variable rate (SVR) rate of interest was included, but many homeowners now use fixed rate, discount and tracker mortgages not covered in the SVR measure.
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