This tweet suggests the UK Conservative Party are holding off calling a general election until inflation is <3%. This question resolves UK General Election if a general election polling day occurs before the Office for National Statistics publishes an CPIH annual rate below (and not equal to) 3.0% (to a single decimal place), and resolves UK Inflation <3% if the inflation target is met first.
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Election is announced as later, I shift to <3%, and then more inflation turns up on the horizon.
Strongly suspect that if we dip below 3% it will be for a very short period of time.
@Noit Would recommend editing the title and answers to show this, as it's quite subtle in the description!
It's worth noting that the CPIH in this market is slightly different to the CPI which is usually the figure quoted when the media talks about inflation.
The latest figures which came out a week ago had CPI at 6.7% and CPIH at 6.3%.
The numbers are usually pretty close, but I could see a scenario where inflation dips towards 3% in 2024 and rises again before an Autumn General Election meaning that a slight difference between the two measures makes the difference!
@SimonGrayson This is a very good point. I thought I had read at the point I set this market up that the government is targeting CPIH <3%, but fullfact are reporting that Sunak’s “halving inflation” target is CPI, so maybe I either misread or misunderstood.
That said my understanding that CPIH is a better metric, and I suspect that if CPIH dropped below 3% with CPI remaining above, we’d see the Conservative government spinning with the former more than the latter. Good to clarify though!