Who, or what, is responsible for the UK’s sky-high inflation rate? Not me, says the Bank of England’s governor. Andrew Bailey has pointed the finger at a number of causes: pandemic and lockdowns, Russia’s war against Ukraine and Britain’s tight labour market. But he singled out one group in particular – early retirees – as a contributing factor for the recent inflation spike:

‘If those workers have accumulated enough savings to sustain a desired level of consumption much like the one they had before their early retirement, at least for a while, aggregate demand will not have fallen by as much...