BBC: Businesses should do more to reduce prices in the coming months to help Britons struggling with rising inflation, the government’s cost of living tsar said, as a minister warned of the risk of “unrealistic expectations” over pay.

Countries worldwide are battling cost-of-living levels not seen in decades, ratcheted up by the reopening of the global economy after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The Bank of England predicts inflation will top 11% in October.

“If you think about all the money that’s spent on marketing and doing deals to promote some of the big leisure activities that the British people enjoy, let’s take some of that money,” David Buttress, former chief executive of Just Eat, told the BBC.
“Let’s refocus it on what really matters to people which is making their prices more competitive so their money goes further.”

Buttress was appointed by the government this week to work with the private sector to develop, identify and promote schemes such as discounted prices or product offers to help ease the increasing pressures on household budgets.