Fueled by higher food and energy prices, Britain's inflation rate has risen to double digits for the first time in forty years, the ONS said on Wednesday.

In July, consumer prices were up 10.1 percent year-on-year, after 9.4 percent in June.

This was the island's highest rate of inflation since February 1982.

The rise in consumer prices, which is putting pressure on millions of households, was higher than economists had expected.

Food prices even rose by 12.7 percent.

Philip Pickert

Business correspondent based in London.

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"The times are tough, I understand that," said Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi on the new inflation figures.

"People are worried about the price increases that countries around the world are experiencing." There are no easy solutions.

Zahawi recalled the state's multi-billion dollar household support packages, particularly those for low earners and pensioners, as well as the £400 subsidy on energy bills in the coming months.

It could get even worse in the fall

The Bank of England forecasts that inflation will peak at around 13 percent in October, when energy bills could jump from around £2,000 a year to around £3,500 a year.

After that, however, it should drop back to a good 2 percent by 2024, also due to a slight recession.

However, it is uncertain whether this expectation of the Bank of England will be fulfilled.

The "cost of living crisis" has been the dominant economic policy issue in Great Britain for months.

The Iceland supermarket chain, with its 900 stores, has now announced interest-free loans of up to £100 for poorer customers when they buy groceries.

There is full employment and unemployment is the lowest it has been in around fifty years.

Wages are rising quite quickly, but at an average of just under 5 percent in the second quarter, the increase was well below the increase in consumer prices, so that real income – i.e. minus the inflation rate – shrank by around 3 percent.

The real wage losses are also very unequally distributed.

Salaries are rising the slowest in the public sector.

The teachers' union recently rejected an offer of a 5 per cent wage increase in England and Wales and wants to hold a strike ballot.

This week, around 40,000 railway workers again paralyze parts of the rail traffic.

In the fall, there could be major strikes across the public sector.

The opposition Labor Party is driving the ruling Conservatives before it.

Party leader Keir Starmer recently called for the upper limit for energy bills to be frozen.

This is said to cost £15 billion, and Starmer wants to levy another special tax on energy company profits.

Secretary of State Liz Truss, the favorite in the race to succeed Johnson as prime minister, has promised early tax cuts for citizens if she is elected on September 5.