Why the threat of deflation hasn't gone away

Many people expected consumer prices to fall in February. But according to official figures, they rose. So has the spectre of deflation finally disappeared? Merryn Somerset Webb doesn't think so. Here, she explains why.

When my daughter announced this week that she is now prepared to wear jeans sometimes (for the past year, she has worn a party dress every day), I went straight to the internet to print out a discount voucher for Gap. For at least 12 months, the chain has offered a voucher of some kind giving 30% off, for anyone who can be bothered to look for it.

But, this time, there wasn't one. I visited all the usual websites - www.vouchercodes.co.uk, www.123vouchercodes.co.uk, www.moneysavingexpert.com and the like. Nothing.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.