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The threat of stronger sanctions, or even a military attack, because of their country’s nuclear programme has kept ordinary Iranians glued to the news, but most remain more worried by the skyrocketing price of food.

Mahmoud Bahmani, central bank governor, put the annual inflation rate on Tuesday at 19.1 per cent. But economists, shopkeepers and consumers say prices have been rising far more than the government claims in recent months.

“The annual inflation rate of the same basket of goods that is used by the central bank is actually more than 50 per cent,” Hossein Raghfar, an economist, says.

Shopkeepers say that, since June, the price of milk has risen by at least 30 per cent, cheese by about 40 per cent, butter by more than 40 per cent and eggs by around 50 per cent.

Double-digit inflation has been part of life in Iran for decades but a cut in state subsidies on energy and other basic commodities, worth an estimated $100bn per year, in a reform programme began last December has led to a dramatic increase in the cost of living. Although that move was praised by the Inter... >>>