Money and the Bank

It is strange that the Bank of England has a Monetary Policy Committee yet  declines to set targets for money and credit expansion. It does not  normally comment on money and credit growth in its Reports, preferring to concentrate on past figures for GDP, inflation, estimated capacity utilisation and unemployment. Its forecasting record has been poor in recent years. It confidently expected inflation to stay down around 2% following its big monetary expansion and bond buying policy of 2020-21. It has only recently accepted inflation has greatly overshot its target and forecasts, waiting for the overshoot before admitting it. It now forecasts inflation to fall well below target in a couple of year’s time, yet still hiked interest rates higher as if it did not believe  its own forecast.

Whilst it is true that any given monetary measure may become distorted if it is a target or prime interest of a Central Bank, it is also true that if we look at any of the great inflations they have been accompanied or caused by excessive money and credit creation in their early stages. Given the Bank’s wish to interfere in the bond markets and to manage interest rates for various periods of borrowing from overnight to 50 years, you would have thought it would take an interest in how much money and credit is in circulation and in how far that might expand  given its actions. If inflation is agreed by the Bank to  be too much money chasing too few goods, they should not only study the too few goods (capacity) but also the too much money. Traditionally Central Banks have tried to control money and credit by moving interest rates, expecting commercial banks to lend less when rates are higher and lend more when rates are lower. More recently Central Banks have directly boosted money supply by creating bank reserves to buy up bonds. Much of this money initially found its way into asset prices, creating inflation in bonds, shares and property. More recently the inflation has spread into goods and services, as the money freed from the bonds has been spent.

The Bank should introduce some paragraphs in its commentary on rates of money and credit growth. They should explain why they think fast growth in these aggregates will not on that occasion produce inflation. Today they need to comment on whether there is enough money and credit around, given the slowdown and the dramatic change in money policy they have put the economy through.

84 Comments

  1. Javelin
    March 31, 2023

    93% of readers in an Express poll do not want electric cars. This Government has become completely detached from reality like a blind person running around on the M25. The end will not make comfortable viewing.

    1. Ashley
      March 31, 2023

      And why should they? Electric car create more CO2 not less, cost far more per mile overall, have short lived very expensive batteries, take hours to recharge, very limited range, damage the roads more, more tyre wear (as heavier). More environmental damage too when manufacture etc. is fully considered. They are larger emissions elsewhere cars.

      Plus they are a service fire hazard especially on ferries, trains and in tunnels that cannot be put out easily.

      1. Dave Andrews
        March 31, 2023

        Imagine if Eurotunnel prohibited electric vehicles on the grounds of safety.

        1. glen cullen
          March 31, 2023

          electric vehicles are prohibited on Norwegian ferries

        2. Lifelogic
          April 1, 2023

          I think they probably should, we have already had ships lost.

    2. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      It’s not what the Tory voting plebs want; its what the government tell us what you can have 
it’s all gone topsy-turvy

    3. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 31, 2023

      93% of readers in an Express poll would probably not want people to be allowed any hedging other that privet either.

      They’re hardly representative.

      1. glen cullen
        March 31, 2023

        Maybe they are !

    4. jerry
      April 1, 2023

      @Javelin; Any chance of having that 95% as a real number of people, or the sample size please? Otherwise it’s all just waffle!

  2. Cynic
    March 31, 2023

    Perhaps the Bank of England and the Treasury are too wedded to Keynesian orthodoxy.

  3. Mark B
    March 31, 2023

    Good morning.

    If the BoE has problems with inflation and interest rates then we can all turn to the government to cut interest rates right ?

    Who am I kidding 😉

    ÂŁ20bn on Carbon Capture. What is that going to achieve ? What wasteful spending. Chancellor Kwarteng spending was far more benign than this, and for that both he a PM Truss got pillared and ousted.

    You MP’s got the government YOU wanted and deserve. Not us !

    1. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      Wise words Mark B

    2. Paul Cuthbertson
      March 31, 2023

      MarkB- just ask yourself WHERE does all this money ACTUALLY go?

  4. Sakara Gold
    March 31, 2023

    Recent problems with banks in America and Switzerland show that the global system of fractional reserve banking is very close to another 2008 financial crisis.

    With global debt now over 250% of global GDP – and here in the UK debt has just crossed 100% of GDP – politicians are addicted to printing fiat money via their central banks, which will become worthless. Remember the overprinted Zimbabwe $Trillion note?

    Those who hold hard assets during the coming financial collapse will survive and prosper. Those with debt will find themselves rummaging in dustbins for food and living in shop doorways in cardboard boxes.

    1. Narrow Shoulders
      March 31, 2023

      A ÂŁ10,000 loan becomes easily repaid in an inflationary economy.

  5. Peter Wood
    March 31, 2023

    Good Morning,
    If I may comment on your Tweets. Ref energy. Can you ask the minister if the government expects UK to produce more electricity domestically this coming year than last? Also, if the UK will extract more oil and gas or less from UK fields this coming year than last?
    If the minister says they can’t forecast such information, then really, how do you produce an energy policy of any use?

    PS, Is the BoE doing QE, or QT….. or something else? I get lost with the changes of ‘policy’…..

  6. Richard1
    March 31, 2023

    Does CPTPP membership represent a tangible Brexit win and will there be anything to show for it by the election?

    1. Peter Parsons
      March 31, 2023

      Plus the UK is now bound by the CPTPP’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, a mechanism whereby foreign companies can sue the UK government for compensation over laws and regulations legitimately enacted into UK law.

      ECJ – bad, but CPTPP ISDS – good. An interesting inconsistency.

  7. James1
    March 31, 2023

    “It is strange that the Bank of England has a Monetary Policy Committee yet declines to set targets for money and credit expansion”.

    It’s more than strange, it’s incompetent, and shows that the the top tier of the Bank’s management structure hasn’t a clue and needs to be removed rapidly.

  8. Sir Joe Soap
    March 31, 2023

    Most people can see the hash which was made during the panic-demic of 2020-1. The root cause of current inflation is down to groupthink amongst a group of cossetted, immature decision makers at the heart of government. The technicalities of money supply are no more relevant to the analysis than deciding the list of repairs needed when a teenage driver whacks your car into a hedge. The root cause is inexperience and panic, not whether the car should or shouldn’t have withstood the hit.

    1. Paul Cuthbertson
      March 31, 2023

      SirJS- “during the PLANNED – demic of 2020-1

  9. James1
    March 31, 2023

    O/t the climate change Act has become the most expensive measure ever passed by Parliament. A referendum is needed on Net Zero. Only then will we see the eco loons consigned to the obscurity they so richly deserve

    1. Timaction
      March 31, 2023

      Indeed. That idiot Schnapps on telly yesterday gleefully telling us our gas prices will rise, whilst electric will fall, all to encourage heat pumps and electric cars. When is the Snake and Hunt introducing the 5 year tractor production plans comrade? Goodbye Consocialists, we’re not buying them. Way to soon. Sort out energy production first, not windfall taxes on the producers. Fools.

    2. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      ‘’Whopping 82% of Berlin’s Voters Refuse to Support Net Zero 2030 as Referendum Fails’’
      https://dailysceptic.org/2023/03/30/whopping-82-of-berlins-voters-refuse-to-support-net-zero-2030-as-referendum-fails/
      You will not see this on the BBC or SKY

  10. Cuibono
    March 31, 2023

    From a cartoon 1866 portraying The BoE as a wise old lady with a stocking full of savings.
    ( There was a bank “panic” at that time due to over risky speculation. Some of the big names were already around then and one at the centre of the 1866 panic had failed about a century earlier
the name dropped but amalgamated.
    These corporations have persisted all these years obviously believing in change, dissolving family ties and diversity for themselves! Not.)

    The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street — “Now, my young friends, let this be a warning to you against rash speculation. What would you have done but for my little savings?”‘

  11. George Brooks.
    March 31, 2023

    During our careers there is always the possibility that one can get promoted to level beyond our ability.

    Your post today, Sir John, clearly illustrates that we have a governor of the Bank of England who has been promoted several levels above his ability. His lack of foresight and planning is now showing through his decisions and we will be suffering the consequences.

    If he won’t retire gracefully then the PM and the Chancellor need to replace him as a matter of urgency.

    1. Michael McGrath
      April 1, 2023

      GB
      He looks like a classic example of the “Peter Principle”

  12. Berkshire Alan
    March 31, 2023

    I guess all I can say is, does any other Country have a system that has proven to work better and more accurately than the one we follow, if there is, then why are we not looking to improve our own performance along the same lines.
    There is no need to constantly try to re invent the wheel !

  13. Cuibono
    March 31, 2023

    Well..whatever they are up to it must be working for someone, somewhere.
    Or they’d stop doing it!
    @transfer of wealth by the shedload.

  14. Ian B
    March 31, 2023

    “you would have thought”? – but do they? Another taxpayer funded entity that is without responsibility and accountability – just a take the money and enjoy, there is no need to manage or achieve anything other than rhetoric, ego and self importance.

    Just like this Conservative Government, the refusal to manage, the refusal to do what they are paid to do. Anything but the purpose in hand.

  15. Bloke
    March 31, 2023

    Inflation has no teeth if purchasers don’t buy it.

  16. agricola
    March 31, 2023

    The way in which the BoE conducts itself may be significant in the economy but is unlikely to affect the way people vote. In fact pouring over it might be seen as a way of distracting attention from those smack you in the face subjects that will affect the way people vote.
    Take Grant Shapps on energy yesterday. Espousing a policy that will hit everyone directly in the pocket. Hike the price of gas to the point where everyone will be delighted to spend ÂŁ20,000 on installing a heat pump of questioable efficiency, run by electricity of intermittent reliability. Where do you find the idiots who dream up such nonesense. GBNews facilitates their opinions in the cause of balance, generocity in extremis. I assume that when such are not on the media they are government advisors, helping Grant Shapps to talk the sort of rubbish that will ensure political oblivion. It is simple really, correct the corrupt and insane system that ensures we in the UK enjoy some of the highest fuel costs in the World when we have oil, coal, and gas surrounding us and under our feet. The route to nett zero or near it is our own gas until we can cover our electrical needs with SMRs and then 2050 plus fusion energy. Our heating need should be our own gas until all those intermittent subsidised windmills can be used to produce hydrogen. Killing the ICE will achieve imports from China on a large scale, and then you are up the proverbial creek paddleless.

  17. majorfrustration
    March 31, 2023

    Thats all very well but it presupposes that the people at the BoE and the Treasury know what they are doing and have the best interests of the UK at heart.

  18. Lynn Atkinson
    March 31, 2023

    Towns and businesses in the north east are as dead as a doornail. There is just nobody about. It’s a monetary lockdown.

    1. Mickey Taking
      March 31, 2023

      A few days ago I went shopping at a rather large DIY just a few miles from Sir John’s patch.
      Mid morning and you could hear a pin drop, almost deserted, no ‘obvious’ tradesmen just the likes of us in civvy clothing. Oh Dear..

    2. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      Nail polishing salons, hand carwash, middle-east mini-marts, kebab takeaways and turkish barbers are flourishing 
but they’re mainly in business to move money around and to rotate immigrant staff

  19. Fedupsouthener
    March 31, 2023

    What is the point of joining the CPTPP when through net zero anything we make will be uncompetitive to sell in the world? Will we have any businesses able to stay afloat with what’s coming?

    1. Cuibono
      March 31, 2023

      +1
      Apparently if we join ( or has it all been signed?) it would be nigh on impossible for us to rejoin the EU.
      If true that sounds just great to me.
      Or am I missing something?

      1. turboterrier
        March 31, 2023

        Cuibono.
        +1 hopefully we have missed nothing.

    2. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      I want a UK without ‘net-zero’, let the rest of the world play with the idea …lets be last for a change like china, india, russia, africa, south america, asia and the middle east

      1. MFD
        April 1, 2023

        I second that sensible proposal Glen. I dont know about you but I am getting really angry with this scam. I cannot afford to follow their yellow brick road!

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        April 1, 2023

        Yes I think having had our economy trashed we probably qualify to join BRICS. May as well follow Saudi etc. Let’s leave the EU and Biden’s America to themselves. Another benefit of Brexit.

  20. PeteB
    March 31, 2023

    If the BofE wanted to properly manage money supply then return to the Gold Standard

  21. graham1946
    March 31, 2023

    I don’t believe that ‘too much money chasing too few goods’ is the basis of this inflation. I think it is entirely due to rip off prices for energy which pushes up the prices of everything and certain manufacturers and traders jumping on the bandwagon and price gouging. How you stop inflation by pushing up prices (in this case people’s mortgages and debts), allowing rip offs in the energy sector and more or less skinting people, I just don’t know. We are said to be lucky to have avoided a recession. I don’t believe that either judging by the activity I see in the shops. I think we are lucky to have avoided a crash, which may yet come if the bank carries on as it is.

  22. glen cullen
    March 31, 2023

    If allowed, there is a good explainer of carbon capture at the LSE, we all need to understand what our government is spending ÂŁ20bn on
    https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage-and-what-role-can-it-play-in-tackling-climate-change/

    1. Fedupsouthener
      March 31, 2023

      Glen. If they are spending this much on Carbon Capture then they must know we will be reliant on fossil fuels for a very long time. You couldn’t make it up.

      1. glen cullen
        March 31, 2023

        Agree – Every government talks about fossil fuels, but no one talks about Ocean-atmosphere exchange, Plant and animal respiration, Soil respiration and decomposition and Volcanic eruptions 
because governments can’t TAX them
        https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/carbon-dioxide-emissions

  23. agricola
    March 31, 2023

    Comment on ULEZ. I maintain it is a tax collecting scam by the mayor of London followed by other deceitfully led cities around the UK.
    Currently a diesel engine to Euro 6 standards or a petrol engine to Euro 4 standards or an EV are charge free in London. Euro 6 diesels started production around 2014/2015, Euro 4 petrol cars started about 2006. We are talking about quite old vehicles, so rather than destroy the businesses of many tradesmen, why not have a nationwide scrappage scheme for one year that encourages everyone to buy a compliant vehicle. Once completed in two years max, no need for money hungry mayors to spend a fortune of rate payers money on signs, cameras , and electronic monitoring. Problem solved QED.
    It suggests to me that encouraging the developement of even cleaner ICEs is a better way to go than EVs that only suit a minority with their own home charging points and essentially only want shopping vehicles. The infrastructure and electricity are not there for a 100% switch to EVs. Long term, long distance, hydrogen is the answer.

    1. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      Or scrap ULEZs ….problem solved

    2. graham1946
      April 1, 2023

      And if you just pay the money you can run around polluting all day as much as you like. It’s a scam. The Mayor is incapable of living within a budget so this and other scams are the replacement money so he can go to America etc. on a jolly.

  24. Original Richard
    March 31, 2023

    “It is strange that the Bank of England has a Monetary Policy Committee yet declines to set targets for money and credit expansion.”

    Sir John, could it appear strange to you because there is information/policies known to the BoE of which you are unaware?

    For instance, have you taken into account the Net Zero policies to reduce our net CO2 emissions to zero by 2050 (or now 2040 according to the latest UN IPCC report) by reducing substantially our manufacturing and economic activity coupled with locking us down to our local areas and severely restricting our activities and demands for food, heating, goods and travel?

  25. Nigl
    March 31, 2023

    Did the Bank predict a recession and have they been wrong again, just.

    Time to ditch the regularly failing Andrew Bailey. I see it is retirees fault that inflation is high, nothing to do with printing vast amounts of money after it was necessary.

    I see Ministers also are suggesting that same are to blame by not coming back to work.

    When will the out of touch entitled wealthy realise that for large numbers of people, work, travel etc is an awful drudge to be got out of as soon as possible.

    My whole aim was to get out in my 50s so I could have a long time enjoying, getting back what I had put in. Unfortunately we have got a faux Tory Party taxing our hard earned savings on which we have already been taxed, to force us back to work. No problem of course for the politicians doing this, honours, directorships, other sinecures beckon plus of course all egregiously wealthy already.

  26. Bert Young
    March 31, 2023

    The BoE is in drastic need of an overall review of its staffing and field of operation . It was once the custom that it employed very well qualified and experienced team of individuals ; this does not seem to be the case today . Several years ago a Mckinsey friend who had been charged with investigating the BoE’s role and staffing reported to me how impressed he was ; I question that it would receive the same sort of accolade today .

  27. Ian wragg
    March 31, 2023

    I notice you don’t make any comments on the governments latest thousand page suicide note. Te the latest net zero lunacy which is to leave us all poorer colder and hungry.
    Schnapps struts about proclaiming the end of uk car manufacturing as if it was some heroic feat
    You really do deserve a period of reflection in opposition and it’s a gift for the Reform party.

    1. Timaction
      March 31, 2023

      Indeed it is. Let him walk to work in London from……. Newcastle. The fool can repent on the way!

    2. Fedupsouthener
      March 31, 2023

      Reform party? Oh, I do hope so. There is nobody I talk to that is impressed with this government. They are abysmal dummies.

  28. formula57
    March 31, 2023

    Targetting M3 in the 1970’s and 1980’s seemed problematic for the Bank although it now apparently giving insufficient regard to credit and money supply levels looks negligent.

  29. Keith from Leeds
    March 31, 2023

    An excellent summary, but you seem to be a voice crying in the wilderness. The PM & Chancellor are certainly not listening! Meanwhile, Andrew Bailey is allowed to carry on despite having failed. There is the root of the problem, to whom does he report & who has the power to sack him, & why have they not done so? That problem runs throughout the public sector, mediocrity is tolerated from top to bottom. No doubt there are some hard-working Civil Servants among the 500 thousand plus, but I suspect it will be about 20% of them.
    Perhaps you could explain why Andrew Bailey has not been sacked & who has the power to do so?

  30. MFD
    March 31, 2023

    Sir John, On a different subject, what is your opinion of the latest EU scam against Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Starting in January 2024 a mandatory system of electronic travel authorisation called ETIAS will be rolled out by the EU.
    It will restrict travel to 90 days in a 180 day period and will cost any one from the UK ÂŁ6.41. ( 7 euros).
    Europa. EU warned that being GRANTED a valid ETIAS does not always mean automatic access to Europe. It does not guarantee you can travel to Europe!

    More dirty dealings, they really hate us for upsetting their long term plans!!!

    1. Peter van LEEUWEN
      March 31, 2023

      @MFD:
      This EU system will apply to all “third” or “foreign” countries. What makes the UK different ???

      1. Bloke
        March 31, 2023

        Peter:
        The difference is that Britons and other sensible nations control their own laws.
        The EU is right to demand what it buys fits their specifications, just as every customer should.
        The EU is wrong in attempting to force its specifications on what non-member suppliers produce to sell to others in their own land.
        If you want to buy a white shirt here locally, would you tolerate paying for an orange one just because your neighbour bought an orange one in the EU?

    2. hefner
      March 31, 2023

      MFD, It is very similar to the ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) that the USA introduced in 
 2008 and which now costs $21.
      I guess you don’t complain about the US system that would cost you almost three times as much as the EU one? Or did you?

    3. Bernie
      March 31, 2023

      MFD and why would you want to go to EU countries for such long periods when you have all the comforts of UK at home.

      Did you hear about the Brit who went into Spanish immigration looking for a residency permit and the officer asked him how long he had been living in Spain – twelve years said thd Brit – and the official replied you’re here twelve years and you still cannot speak Spanish.. and that sums it up.

  31. turboterrier
    March 31, 2023

    Is it not beyond the will of the BOE to take breath and actually realise just how much debt is going to be generated due to the policies of this lame duck government obsessed with the removal of CO2 with no idea of any provisional costing and the full impact on the people of this country and for what real purpose? Is it that as a defence mechanism ignorance is bliss with the mentality of ” its not me gov”

  32. Peter from Leeds
    March 31, 2023

    The French revolutionaries thought they had a solution to poverty and funding warfare by printing more and more money (assignats). It didn’t go well.

    The end result a public destruction of the presses and the paper used in Paris on 18 February 1796.

    As you say Sir John every great inflation is generated by “easy money”. In my (our) lifetime the 70s inflation was (in part) caused by the “Barber Boom”. I often wonder what would have happened had Iain Macleod (with his extensive skills as a gambler) not have died suddenly in 1970 just at the start of the Heath Government.

    History is littered with examples of “unexpected” hyperinflations – each time those in charge think “it will be different this time because…”

    It will be different this time because we have digital money, AI, Blockchain, the internet…….

  33. herebefore
    March 31, 2023

    Same old same old – there is a war going on in Europe – interest rates and inflation are through the roof – with food banks and strikes at home – nothing is normal about anything anymore – it’s a time for hunkering down not pontificating abouf what the Bank should do – because nobody know’s

  34. IanT
    March 31, 2023

    “Combined with the very attractive Business Taxes we introduced in the last Budget” Jeremy Hunt on TV this morning.
    I must admit that my first reaction was to laugh out loud – and then I was grudingly just a little impressed with the sheer chutzpah of this man. With a brass neck that solid, I wonder how his wife gets the green stain out of his shirt collars?

  35. The Prangwizard
    March 31, 2023

    OT. We are I think aware that our opinons are ignored by Sir John’s party in government. The idea that it may listen if we started to throw bricks through is of course verboten.

    However it should be noted that it does change policy following the French throwing bricks through their windows and starting fires in Paris. That is the raising of pension starting dates here not now to take place. Don’t imagine there is no connection.

  36. turboterrier
    March 31, 2023

    Another great post from Net Zero Watch, Really confirming that even if the numbers were there it would still be unsustainable. In the Telegraph or NaLoPKT websites. Why are the majority of politicians afraid to break ranks and follow the common sense route? If they did maybe the bankers would change tact.

    Allister Heath: Net Zero is a Trojan horse for the total destruction of Western society

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/net-zero-trojan-horse-total-destruction-western-society/?mc_cid=919bc0d0ce&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/31/allister-heath-net-zero-is-a-trojan-horse-for-the-total-destruction-of-western-society/

  37. Mickey Taking
    March 31, 2023

    OFF TOPIC….from BBC website.
    Water companies released raw sewage into rivers and seas in England for more than 1.75 million hours last year.
    The figures – an average of 824 spills per day – are down a third on the previous year, but the Environment Agency attributed the fall to dry weather, not water company action.
    Sewage is released if there is too much demand on treatment works in rainy periods. It is a legitimate process.
    But experts say it is happening too often and poses a danger to health. Untreated effluent, including human waste, wet wipes and sanitary products are contained within these releases, posing a serious risk to the local wildlife, swimmers and others who use UK waterways.
    “This degrades precious ecosystems and poses a danger to public health,” said Prof Jamie Woodward, geography professor at the University of Manchester. “Each discharge is a toxic cocktail of many pollutants, including microplastics and pathogens.”
    The latest data, revealed by the Environment Agency on Friday, is taken from monitoring stations installed at combined sewer overflows or CSOs. CSOs were developed as overflow valves to reduce the risk of sewage backing up during heavy rainfall when sewer pipes become overloaded, leading to flooding. The valves release a mixture of raw sewage from homes and businesses, and rainwater run-off.

    1. glen cullen
      March 31, 2023

      Just following the Tory policy of ‘re-wilding’

    2. turboterrier
      March 31, 2023

      M T
      If the fines started being handed out the water companies would have to act and get their operating procedures together.
      Their share holders wouldn’t be too happy, but they have had a good period of money with no risk so they cannot get too upset.

  38. Nottingham Lad Himself
    March 31, 2023

    I’m sure that John would indeed rather write about banks than about sovereignty just now.

    While hardcore brexiters would like to pretend that the recently signed CPTPP is the ultimate payoff of our decision to leave the European Union and write our own rules, the reality is rather different. In signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Britain has ditched environmental standards, signed up to terms that will undermine British farmers, and left us open to being sued by multinational corporations in secretive courts – and all for no real economic benefit.

    So much for that, eh?

    1. Martin in Bristol
      March 31, 2023

      Canada is one of the nations involved in this trade partnership NHL.
      They seem a very liberal and well organised and heavily legislated country.
      Are you really claiming that they have awful environmental standards and they will try to impose them on the UK?

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        March 31, 2023

        Ah, right, you mean that it includes the bits of the British Commonwealth that brexiters acknowledge, but not the parts that include 97% of its people, I deduce.

      2. hefner
        April 7, 2023

        Canada as a nation might be a ‘very liberal, well organised, heavily legislated country’. But its private mining, oil and gas companies still use ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) courts as part of CUSMA (Canada-US-Mexico Agreement) to sue Mexico.
        Moreover there are a large number of ongoing claims involving ISDS around Covid vaccine manufacturers vs various states.
        You might get a better view on this type of things reading Private Eye than 


    2. Mickey Taking
      March 31, 2023

      Define hardcore? Is that those who voted for it, and still want it? I’d say that would pitch at about 98%.
      Perhaps you fill your day asking people in Nottingham, Cardiff, Malaga – wherever you lay your head these days, since you seem to suggest expertise on the subject.

    3. Fedupsouthener
      March 31, 2023

      Martin. Do please shut up. Politely asked of course.

      1. Fedupsouthener
        March 31, 2023

        My reply was to NLH.

    4. Bella
      March 31, 2023

      NHL.. yes but more than that because who will we be taking our orders from then and into the future .. every trading bloc has rules regulations. ‘orders must be obeyed’, and since we will be one of the late joiners I suppose we will just have wait our turn to sign up to their rules. So what’s new? Will there be an escape clause should we wish to leave in case it becomes the evil empire of before or will we have to go through another six tortuous years of WA protocol and maybe framework. Then whatever happened to just trading according to WTO rules?- but even the WTO has rules
      So maybe we should stay at home not join anything more now until we sort ourselves out..

  39. forthurst
    March 31, 2023

    The Bank of England should not be following the so-called Federal Reserve in its meddling in the bond market to manipulate interest rates and the rate of growth of the economy. We should not be following the USA in many of the things that it does.
    There needs to be real growth in our economy outside of the housing market and into producing what the world wants and not what the Tories believe we and they should be allowed to have. In other words, get rid of Net Zero because it seriously damaging our capacity to produce goods at prices the world is prepared to pay. Forget banksterism which concentrates our economy in the commuter range of London and leads to crashes caused by the spivery which is attracted to making money by buying and selling bits of paper irrespective of their provenance.

  40. Ralph Corderoy
    March 31, 2023

    You seem to be asking the Bank of England to publish what they have deliberately chosen to stop doing so in the past. I don’t think we get updates on the base and broad money supply any more. This is because it would have long accentuated the obvious: ‘money printer go brrrrr!’ Politicians don’t want the voters to see the theft, especially as inflation isn’t that flavour of the day: progressive. And the central bank knows it’s a confidence game; all that matters is giving a stick here and there a bit of a jiggle as the plates start to wobble.

    ‘The Bank Charter Act 1844 was enacted because banks’ issue of notes in excess of gold was causing economic chaos, particularly through reckless lending and imprudent speculation. I am once again reminded that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.’ — Steve Baker, HC Deb, 20 November 2014, c434.

  41. Ian B
    March 31, 2023

    Kemi Badenoch should now become PM, she appears to be the only member of this Government doing a job and working for the UK. Just hampered by the hangers-on steeling the glory for personal egotistical headlines.

  42. Derek
    March 31, 2023

    Let me sum it up, “The Bank of England IS strange”.
    Everything they have done over the past few years is strange because it is illogical and deviates from sound economic practice. From interfering in our political Brexit, to Overloading on QE, maintaining ultra low rates when wages were rising, selling Gilts at huge losses to us taxpayers, et al. A long story of incompetence.
    Yet no one has paid the price of failure.
    If it were truly in the Private Sector, heads would roll BUT it is clear they are sailing on the same ship as those in Government and in the Civil Service running those decrepit Government departments. They never need any lifeboats to save them, they are always protected by a golden policy that ensures zero loss of face, job (and income) to ALL who sail in her, regardless of the damage they wrought.
    The failings are building in almost every institution we have and if nothing is done to correct them and to remove those who cause them, a tsunami of problems will be upon us all and do untold damage to OUR country.
    The whole world is on the cliff edge of the next massive crash in the markets and there appears to be an overdose of apathy towards it from the ‘Strange’ central bank we have.
    Our only chance is that our competitors are not ready either but I would not bank on it.

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