One of the UK’s core selling points has always been its commercial geography — between North America and continental Europe. But, at the moment, it is getting the worst of both worlds. As Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, warned last week, the UK economy is “weakening rather earlier and somewhat more than others”. The country will face “a further step-up” in inflation later this year — and its prices problem will have “more persistence”. Like the US, Britain had a strong post-Covid surge. But two years of pent-up demand and changed tastes were unleashed on an economy that proved unable to satisfy them. This fuelled rapid growth, but the mismatch between supply and demand also generated inflationary heat.
一直以來，英國的核心“賣點”之一就是它在貿易上的地理位置——位于北美與歐洲大陸之間。但眼下它在兩邊都在碰壁。正如英國央行行長安德魯?貝利(Andrew Bailey)上周所警告的，英國經濟“轉弱比其他國家早了很久，也嚴重了一些”。這個國家今年晚些時候將面臨通脹的“進一步上升”——而且它的物價問題將會“更持久”。