While high inflation is definitely a cause for concern, it is largely a result of temporary factors such as the increase in VAT and surging commodity prices.
While that could be the product of temporary factors, it could also mean healthy people aren't lining up for coverage in the numbers that either the industry or outside analysts had hoped.
Weale and McCafferty remained concerned about the longer-term inflationary outlook, but, "noted the risk that low inflation might persist for longer than the temporary factors implied and concluded that this risk would be increased by an increase in Bank Rate at the current juncture".
However, a considerable time-lag in the aerial-surveyed data limits its use, e.g. for analyses which include temporary factors.
Special pleading about temporary factors will count for little at the general election likely in May.
This seems to be due to temporary factors not accounted for in the seasonal adjustment, but in the previous weeks numbers had been ticking upward in any case.
"These diverging signals partly reflect temporary factors, but the big picture for the UK economy is of a marked rebalancing towards net trade amidst strong external cost pressures and supply-side deterioration.
Mr Bernanke also noted that inflation had been running below the Fed's 2% longer-run objective, but said that temporary factors were partly the reason for that.
Length-for-age Z scores were used in the analyses because this indicator is not affected by temporary factors such as acute illnesses.
Thursday's data included a revised calculation of total net borrowing for the last financial year, 2012-13, which the ONS now believes was £115bn, excluding temporary factors.
