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Barry Collins isn’t duped by tech firms’ excuses for price hikes beyond their control.

- Barry Collins

Having just returned from Las Vegas, I can bear painful witness to the post-Brexit slump in sterling. I didn’t just lose my shirt on the Blackjack tables this year, I lost a leg of my trousers too.

But you don’t have to visit the US to feel the pinch of the plummeting pound because tech companies are lining up to rub handfuls of salt into our open wounds. Apple, Microsoft, Dell and HP are among the many companies that have used our post-referendum exchange-rate wobble as an excuse to push up their prices.

Apple’s price rises are the easiest to digest. Until recently, the cheapest paid-for app in the App Store cost 79p. Post-Brexit, Apple has decided to shove that price up to 99p, an increase of nearly 25%. MacBooks, iPads and other Apple products have been subject to similar price rises: the cheapest Mac Mini, for example, increased by 20% from £399 to £479 back in October.