Inflation is on the cusp of turning negative for the first time in more than five decades.
Official figures today may show that the consumer prices index dropped to -0.1 per cent last month, from zero in February, on the back of falling food and energy prices.
According to the Office for National Statistics, it would be the first time that Britain has experienced deflation in consumer prices since 1960, the year in which John F. Kennedy was elected president, Elvis Presley recorded Are You Lonesome Tonight? and Penguin books was cleared of obscenity over Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Economists said that the March reading was finely balanced between holding steady and dropping. “The fall into negative territory [may be] delayed until April,” Alan Clarke,