UK inflation has come in above estimates once again. Despite the deepest recession in half a century, consumer prices have barely fallen. The Bank of England may feel pleased to have avoided deflation, but its persistent inflationary bias is storing up trouble.

There’s always an excuse. This time, it’s petrol and clothes prices which have caused the main measures of inflation to come in a notch above expectations. The run of falling readings is clearly over, and the Retail Prices Index, the best measure of the cost of living, is now rising again.

RPI’s peak-to-trough fall was just 1.6 percent, while the Consumer Prices Index — the measure used for the BoE’s inflation target — never fell below 1 percent. This might be seen as a triumph for the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, but in reality it shows just how deeply embedded inflation is in the UK economy, even during a vicious recession.

The record of the MPC supports this. It has failed to hit its 2 percent target for the CPI in any of the last four years, and 2009 is likely to make it five in a row. The error has always been on the upside, and with all forecasters expecting an inflationary surge in the early months of 2010, only a contrarian would bet against six in a row.

VAT will rise in January, and the months at the start of 2009, when companies were cutting prices, will fall out of the 12-month average. The MPC prefers to look through these effects, although the spread of its own projections — from less than zero to 4 percent over the next 12 months — betrays that it has little confidence in its forecasts. If inflation does not subside as hoped, the inevitable rise in interest rates may be much nearer than most believe.

The MPC has signaled it is likely to be writing to the Chancellor in the spring to explain why the CPI has breached the 3 percent ceiling, and what it proposes to do about it. The letter might also usefully address what Monument Securities’ Stephen Lewis calls its “pathological fear of undershooting the inflation target”.