This fact should make Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling and Ed Balls hang their heads in shame.

I saw this story on @politicshome yesterday. Hats off to them for picking it up.

The mainstream press has concentrated on the story that inflation has stayed level this month, albeit at an eye watering 4.5%.

But the IFS has been analysing the data over a rather longer period - the last 10 years - and discovered that the rate of inflation for the poor has far outstripped that for the rich.

For example, they have discovered that between 2008 and 2010, inflation for the poor grew at an average rate of 4.3%, but for the rich it ran at just 2.7%. The difference is because the poor spend more proportionally on food and fuel, on which inflation grew disporportionally fast.

The full IFS report can be found here

This happened on Labour's watch. Shame on them.

Update: @libdemlife have been pointing out to me that there wasn't much Labour could do about fuel and food inflation - which is of course demonstrably true. But they could have done plenty to offset the effects, either directly (fuel vouchers for the unemployed for example) or indirectly (through taxation); instead, they cut the 10p tax band . Which is my real point.