…and So It Begins (or carries on, it’s unclear)….and STILL catching up…

UK inflation rate leaps to 2.3%.

Rising fuel and food prices helped to push last month's inflation rate to the highest since September 2013. Inflation as measured by the Office for National Statistics' Consumer Prices Index (CPI) jumped to 2.3% in February - up from 1.8% in January. The increase has pushed the rate above the Bank of England's 2% target. Food prices recorded their first annual increase for more than two-and-a-half years, standing 0.3% higher in February than a year earlier. The Bank of England has said it expects inflation will peak at 2.8% next year, although some economists think the rate could rise above 3%. This month, the ONS has started to promote its preferred inflation statistic, CPIH, which includes a measure of housing costs and council tax. This was also measured as growing at a rate of 2.3% in February. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation rose to 3.2% in February from 2.6% the month before. At the last week's meeting of the Bank of England's interest rate setting committee, one member voted for interest rates to rise to curb the threat of inflation. But despite inflation standing above the 2% target, some economists do not expect interest rates to rise any time soon. Inflation is now running at the same rate as growth in wages, putting pressure on household income and spending. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at Markit, said: "It remains likely that policymakers will adopt an increasingly dovish tone in coming months, despite the rise in inflation, as the economy slows due to consumers being squeezed by low pay and rising prices."

Thousands of anti-Brexit activists join London march.

Tens of thousands of people joined an anti-Brexit march to call for Britain to remain in the European Union. The Unite for Europe march in London coincided with events to mark 60 years since the EU's founding agreement, the Treaty of Rome, was signed. A minute's silence to remember the victims of the Westminster attack was held ahead of speeches at a rally in Parliament Square. Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger the exit process from the EU next week. One marcher, Jaqueline Skelton, told the BBC she had joined the demonstration because she was "really, really frightened" about leaving the EU. But onlooker Mike McKenna, who voted to leave, said it would be better for the nation to unite before talks with the EU begin, "not stamp your feet and have hissy fits". Brexit Secretary David Davis has described the upcoming talks to leave the EU as "the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation".

Brexit: Food chiefs warn on EU tariffs.

Farmers, supermarkets and food suppliers have called on Theresa May to secure a free trade deal with the European Union after Brexit. Industry bosses said failure to do so could harm the UK's supply of food and drink and lead to higher prices. Although much of the industry is based in the UK, it "cannot operate in isolation", they said. They urged ministers to ensure higher tariffs were not imposed on imported and exported produce. In a joint letter, the National Farmers Union, the Food and Drink Federation and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) called on ministers to ensure they continued to enjoy tariff-free trade with the EU. Helen Dickinson, director general at the BRC, said the bloc was by far the UK's biggest trading partner for food. "To keep prices low for consumers, it is particularly important that we don't have any new tariffs and we maintain frictionless movement of goods and put consumers at the heart of this," she told the Mail on Sunday. The groups' members include British farms, food giants like Nestle and supermarket chains such as Tesco.

Brexit: Civil service 'needs more staff'

The government has been warned that the civil service has failed to recruit enough extra staff to deal with Britain leaving the European Union. The National Audit Office said that there were still hundreds of posts to be filled, days before Brexit negotiations are scheduled to begin. Prime Minister Theresa May is due trigger Article 50 on Wednesday. The head of the civil service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, said it was "well placed" to deal with challenges ahead. In its report, the NAO, which scrutinises government spending, said Brexit would "further increase the capability challenges" facing a civil service already struggling to cope with major projects. It said the government must show "greater urgency" in filling skills gaps in Whitehall. Its report said a third of the 1,000 roles created in the new Department for Exiting the EU and the Department for International Trade had yet to be filled as of February.

And the posts that had been filled were done so "mostly by transferring staff from elsewhere in government". The spending watchdog said many of the specialist skills needed for the negotiations were in short supply and departments were competing against each other to recruit the right staff. National Audit Office chief Amyas Morse said the government must prioritise its activities and be ready to stop work on projects "it is not confident it has the capability to deliver". He said: "The civil service is facing ever-increasing challenges. The work of government is becoming more technical, continuing budgetary restraint is putting pressure on departments and the decision to leave the EU means government will have to develop new skills and take on work previously done by others. Government has gaps in its capability and knows it must do more to develop the skills it needs. It is making plans to do so but the scale of the challenge ahead means greater urgency is needed."

All details above from BBC News website.

[It’s hard to tell (sometimes) if the UK government negotiation team are fantasists, badly advised, deadly serious or simply incompetent. If what’s come out so far is anything to go by and that is where our negotiating position starts from I’d say that we’re going to need a lot longer than 2 years to negotiate jack-shit. Rather than simply playing to the peanut gallery with ideas of open access whilst restricting immigration – always good for votes – this actually seems to be what we are asking for, as if the EU can or wants to give us these quite bizarre accommodations after we’ve left the EU completely. Thinking about it I’d have to plump for delusional. Yes, that’s it. We’re clearly delusional.]