Not to excuse the confusing and misleading nature of it all, but I believe the reasoning of comparing one e.g. April to the previous April rather than the previous March or the start and end of a month, is prices and spending can massively vary between some points over the year, e.g. pre-Christmas price inflation, so this irons out those alarming-looking but normal short term variations to give more of a long term pattern. I agree that saying prices are x higher than this time last year would be much clearer reporting!

But a possibly even bigger issue is *what items are in that basket and who decides they are representative!* Certainly not someone living on the breadline, and relying on supermarket own brand and other bottom of range choices, for whom those prices matter a hecking lot more.