There are fantastic things happening in the UK macro space. Did you hear?

Headline inflation on an island which lorded it over the world until the army was humiliated by a gang of rebellious colonists with a murderous aversion to taxes, ran at just 1.7% last month, according to key data out Wednesday.

The ONS release was good news for the Bank of England. This is the first time headline inflation printed below 2% since April of 2021.

Needless to say, rate-cut wagers were emboldened. The BoE was on hold last month after delivering the first cut since the pandemic in August. The September inflation print makes a cut at the November MPC all but certain, and they might well cut in December too.

At the September policy meeting, Andrew Bailey was careful to emphasis that the BoE doesn’t intend to rush things. “It’s vital,” he said, “that inflation stays low.” Today’s data will be a confidence-booster for an institution that desperately needs it.

The crucial print on Wednesday wasn’t headline CPI. It was services inflation, which slipped to “just” 4.9%. I know, I know: Hooray! Services prices are only rising at a wholly intolerable 4.9% annual rate. But try to curb your sarcastic impulses. This is a struggle for the BoE, and there’s a hapless earnestness to it. Their forecast for services inflation was 5.5%. So, 4.9% constituted a meaningful undershoot.

This is the first time UK services inflation ran below 5% since May of 2022.

There’s a caveat. Good news — any kind of good news, in any context — always comes with a caveat. Here, it’s air fares. They were lower. By a lot. Specifically, by the second-most in 21 years. That’s a seasonal thing, but even accounting for that, the drop was large. That flattered the numbers.

Still, inflation’s heading in the right direction. “We’ve calculated a ‘core services’ index, which the BoE has used recently and excludes items less relevant to monetary policy including air fares,” ING’s James Smith remarked. “That core services index has also fallen back further. In other words, this latest fall looks genuine, and the BoE will be taking note.”