Inflation is back. And this time the effects could be much worse | Patrick Collinson

Consumer prices are at a five-year high – and rising. If you’re young, you may be OK. For the rest of us, it could be a nightmareIn 1972 my father bought a home on the south coast of England for the shockingly high price of £11,500. His mortgage was £8,000, or a little under three times his salary. Within a few years, galloping inflation had sparked the near collapse of the British economy, a run on sterling, and an IMF bailout. Yet by 1980 the ravages of runaway 1970s pr