Except for those who have spent time in developing countries, a whole generation has grown up without any experience of inflation.

The last time we witnessed double-digit inflation in advanced economies was after the oil shock of 1979. The last seriously inflationary decade was the 1970s, when consumer prices more than doubled. Inflation has kept on falling ever since, to an annual average of 5.8 per cent in the 1980s, 3.1 per cent in the 1990s, 2.5 per cent in the 2000s and 1.8 per cent since 2010.