MAIL COMMENT: Labour's past returns to haunt Mr Brown

Every shopper can testify that inflation is nowhere near the alarming 3.3 per cent announced yesterday - the highest official figure for 16 years.

No. The true picture is far worse. For the bare essentials, families already face an inflation rate more than five times higher than the fantasy figure thrown up by the Consumer Prices Index.

Measured by the Daily Mail Cost of Living Index - a much more accurate indication of the burden on those who can't afford luxuries - prices have shot up almost 20 per cent since last summer.

And with food and fuel prices still rising, the prospects for pensioners and the poor this winter are bleak indeed.

Of course, Gordon Brown cannot be blamed for the worldwide surge in oil and commodity prices.

But after 11 years of surreptitious tax rises to fund reckless public spending, he is certainly guilty of leaving our economy with no room for manoeuvre.

Interest rates can't go up to choke off inflation without risking a plunge into recession.

They can't come down to stimulate the economy without sending prices even higher.

Nor can Mr Brown cut taxes without further jeopardising the public finances - already in turmoil after his attempts to buy his way out of electoral trouble.

The only glimmer of good news - for the economy, at least - is that average pay rises have fallen below official inflation for the first time.

But of course that means even greater hardship for wage-earners.

As prices go on soaring, how much longer will they restrain their demands?

Mr Brown's nightmare must be that after years of stability, this Labour Government will end like all the others - in economic chaos and industrial strife.

The great escape

First Justice Secretary Jack Straw is forced to admit there's nothing he can do to stop judges releasing murder suspects on bail. (That's human rights law for you, as if you didn't guess.)

Now comes news that prisoners who abscond are to have some of the time they spend on the run cut from their sentences.

You may have to pinch yourself but, no, that isn't a joke. The joke is what our penal system has become, with so few prison places that there's no longer any room for justice.

Ignoring the people

Two days ago, Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the Commons that Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty 'must be respected', insisting: 'There is no question of ignoring the Irish vote.'

Why, then, is he asking the Lords to ratify this obnoxious and unnecessary Treaty today, as if nothing has happened?

If that's not 'ignoring the Irish vote', then what is?

Mind you, this Government has shown itself just as ready to ignore British public opinion in its determination to transfer yet more power from the people to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

What part of the word 'No' is it that our ruling elite don't understand?

It doesn't add up

In a desperate attempt to improve plummeting standards in maths, ministers are suggesting that busy parents should take time off work to join their young in the classroom.

The Mail has a better idea. For more than a decade, ministers have been getting their figures woefully wrong on everything from school exams and inflation to unemployment and crime.

Couldn't they do with some maths lessons themselves?