Catching up with reality is never easy. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee is finding it particularly hard, electing instead to raise the Bank Rate to the dizzying heights of 1 per cent on Thursday. Bizarrely, this minimalist rise accompanied an admission that inflation in the UK could reach double figures, which is surely at the pessimistic end of others’ projections.
Perhaps, with a nod to that famous inventor of “forward guidance”, Mark Carney, the majority of the MPC decided that the mere mention of 10 per cent price rises would be enough; a sort of mouthy monetarism. We see such terrible things ahead that a mere 0.25 per cent rise in Bank Rate should be enough to stop them happening.
