SINCE November 2015 the pound has depreciated by over 15% against other currencies, mainly because of worries caused by last year’s Brexit referendum. As the cost of imports has risen, inflation has jumped. Monthly figures released on November 14th showed that in October consumer-price inflation was 3%, the joint-highest level since 2012. Mark Carney, the Bank of England’s governor, was only just spared the embarrassment of having to write an explanatory letter to the chancellor, which he must do if inflation is more than a percentage point away from the bank’s target of 2%. Yet there is some good news for Mr Carney: inflation may soon be on its way down again.

In the 1970s inflation was a scourge on the British economy. As unions battled with employers over wage settlements, it was for a time higher than 20%. More recently inflation has become quiescent. The Bank of England won operational independence over monetary policy in 1997. Since then the annual rate of consumer-price inflation has averaged almost exactly 2%, in line with the bank’s target.

Nonetheless, as an open economy with a fairly volatile currency, Britain is prone to short-term spikes in inflation. In 2011, as oil prices soared and the government increased VAT, it hit 5.2%. With weak growth in nominal wages since the financial crisis of 2008-09, even relatively small rises in the inflation rate are felt keenly by workers. The current bout of inflation has resulted in year-on-year falls in real wages in every month since February.

Poor households may have suffered most from the latest rise in inflation. They devote a higher proportion of their income to food, the price of which has increased by 4% in the past year. (Anyone planning to make a Christmas pudding is in for a nasty shock: butter prices are rising at over 20% a year and the cost of dried fruit and nuts by nearly 10%.) Poor folk are also more likely than others to receive state benefits. In April 2016 most working-age welfare payments were frozen in cash terms until 2020. Inflation reduces the purchasing power of those handouts.

Yet inflation may not remain high for long. In the 1970s, workers and businesses responded to a jump in inflation by demanding ever higher wages and prices to compensate. That created a vicious circle. This time around, however, there is little evidence of these so-called second-round effects. In recent months the growth in nominal wages has been only about 2% a year. Firms that are less affected by sterling’s drop, such as those in the service sector, have not jacked up prices. Retailers are offering generous discounts to lure in the punters (see article).

Meanwhile, the effect of the pound’s plunge last year will soon fade. Most measures of inflation capture the year-on-year change in prices. The worst of sterling’s post-referendum depreciation was over by October 2016. Import prices will therefore not continue to rise sharply. Lately there has been a close correlation between movements in sterling and the “core” rate of inflation (a measure which excludes the most volatile components). If that correlation continues, then within a few months the headline rate of inflation should near 2%, assuming sterling holds steady.

That is no small assumption. The pound suffers whenever there is bad news about Brexit, and there is a fair chance that the months ahead will contain plenty of that. If Britain edges closer to the cliff edge of a “no deal” exit, sterling could start to slide again, pushing up prices. But for now, at least, inflation looks more likely to fall than to rise much further.