Chalk one up to the hawks.

City debate over recent months has been around whether the first rate cut would come in November, December or February. The fact that rates stayed on hold this month has caused almost every City analyst to pencil in a cut around the start of next year.

Today's surprise figures beg the question: what makes them so sure?

The Bank has long been worried about businesses passing on their costs. Well, there's plenty of red meat here: input price inflation rising to 8.5 per cent in October, the strongest since July 2006, and output prices responding in kind, up by 3.8 per cent year on year from 2.8 per cent, the highest outturn since December 1995.

The Bank is also worried about consumer inflation expectations. Today's figures are therefore alarming. Food inflation rose to its highest level since August 1993, at 6 per cent, driven by dairy products and bread prices, precisely the sort of goods that consumers are likely to notice when they think about inflation.

Let's say the housing market moves sideways over the course of next year, and consumers — perhaps unwisely — keep spending on the never-never.

Those forces have propped up the economy for rather longer than most commentators expected. Might they not keep things going enough to allow more nasty inflationary surprises from oil and food prices to permeate through the economy?

We will know what the Bank makes of this scenario after Wednesday's Inflation Report. They are unlikely to have quite such a hawkish attitude.

But looking at today's data, you can see why this month they kept their powder dry.

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