Fuel was the driving force behind today's latest sharp reversal of inflationary pressure, recording its sharpest monthly price decline for at least a decade.

In the past 12 months there has been a sharp reversal of the 30-year trend of steadily declining global food prices.

This process could trigger a sharp reversal in flows of capital to emerging countries, as investors stage the biggest retreat from their debt markets in two years over recent weeks.

But the stabilisation in unemployment in the past two years has already taken place against a background of a sharp reversal in public sector employment trends.

The end of cheap home loans and the tide of worrying economic news has caused a sharp reversal of sentiment in a capital that felt immune from such concerns.