Jim Chalmers is blaming the latest shocking inflation figures on the worsening Middle East conflict, and he has a point.

The trouble is, voters aren’t buying what the treasurer is selling.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said that the 9.4% jump in fuel costs in September was largely responsible for inflation accelerating from 4% to 4.3%.

Petrol and diesel prices were on average 24% higher than a year earlier, the data shows.

We are clearly paying an economic price for Donald Trump’s pointless and damaging war on Iran – and you can’t pin that on the government, whatever your political leanings.

Then there’s the sudden boom in spending on datacentres, which is pouring money into an economy that is already struggling to deliver the workers and materials needed to build homes and roads.

Again, this is driven by the global rush by tech companies to put in place the infrastructure to power their artificial intelligence revolution.

Earlier in the day, Michele Bullock, the RBA’s governor, made the same…