Gordon Brown made the Bank of England independent, as everyone thinks they know. Truth is it was a very limited independence.
He did it give it the sole power to settle the Base rate of interest. This is done by an independent Monetary Policy Committee coming up with its own forecasts of inflation and the economy. No-one is challenging that. Many just wish they would get better at it.
At the same time Gordon Brown took away the Bankâs power to regulate individual commercial banks and gave it to a new Regulator, the FSA. This reduced the Bankâs ability to influence credit and money.
In 1998 he gave the power to issue government debt to the debt Management Office, taking that away from the Bank. This reduced the Bank’s influence over the bond market.
This system worked badly during the banking crash of 2008-9 with split responsibilities for the banks between the FCA, the Bank and the Treasury, ending with the need for Treasury bank bailouts on a grand scale.
The introduction of Quantitative easing or money creation by the Bank to buy bonds was thought too big a power to give to the Bank. The overall sum of  money created and bonds bought had to be approved in advance by the Treasury and Chancellor. Any losses that the purchases might lead to were indemnified by the Treasury. There is no way this can be construed as an independent policy. The government has every right to ask the Bank to cut its losses.
The Bank has always accepted that it acted as an agent for the Treasury in building and managing a large bond portfolio. It has also always accepted that budget judgements over spending, tax and borrowing are for the Treasury and Chancellor. The decision of the Bank to incur large and needless losses by selling bonds intrudes on government control of  fiscal policy. Money spent on bond losses is not available to spend on public services or tax cuts, or it drives up the public sector deficit x the Bank which is the key economic control number.
May 1, 2024
Good morning.
If all this was known back in the day, why is it now that it is being pointed out that it must be fixed ?
New Labour’s reforms go far deeper than just with the BoE. These reforms and the various consequences they have caused to a system that has largely worked for hundreds of years have never been reversed. Look at the mess that is Scottish devolution ? If it was not so close to a GE I would be tempted to dismantle the lot. But no, the so called conservative government has built on it, introducing more Mayorals with the looming prospect of making London a Devolved City State.
We did not vote to remove one layer of bureaucracy only to have other various layers imposed on us.
May 1, 2024
It’s strange after 14 years un office and a wipeout on the cards that you have belatedly started to observe what is wrong with the government and institutions.
Having an 80 seat majority gave you the mandate to fix the problems but instead you just doubled down on the nonesense.
I read yesterday the latest CCC wheeze is to build a series of CO2 capture plants along the East Coast and pump said gas into defended oil weeks.
Don’t they realise that with an easterly wind more CO2 laden atmospheric will be blown from the continent.
Idiots is too good a description of these people.
Reply I have not recently woken up to these issues!
May 1, 2024
reply to reply…then it as lots of us suppose – the Tories are hordes of Rip Van Winkles.
Asleep on the job.
May 1, 2024
The Climate Change Committee are our modern day King Canute’s along with the Westminster Uni Party. Perhaps they should go watch these carbon capture machines and at the same time shout/chant at the sky to tell the Sun to increase or decrease its intensity, pray for more or less cloud cover and pray to their weather God to stop any volcanoes! To be really radical, why not send the machines to China/India along with more foreign aid to get a bigger bang for our buck and it would make them feel really good in their virtual signalling world?
May 1, 2024
If only there was someone bold, before the next general election, that could rid us of the CCC, OBR and ECHRs ….wouldn’t that be something
May 1, 2024
All well and good Sir John, but your Party has had 14 years to sort it out or change things, has it not?
May 1, 2024
It is called the ‘being able to blame somebody else’ syndrome and is much evident in Government.
May 1, 2024
As far as I can see JR is blaming the Govt. Unfortunately not âhisâ. Who do you think he is blaming?
May 1, 2024
It is his party and govt.âs fault. If JR and others do not like direction of travel so s9 eth8 g about it. This was JRâs message the other day to those who do not want to vote for his socialist outfit who continually blames other bodies and organisation for their own failings to govern. What change to selection procedures in either his party or public sector has JRâs party secured to drive it back to conservatism? Nothing.
May 1, 2024
Itâs my party too! Itâs the members who âsecure changes to selection proceduresâ.
What have you done to bring this about? I mean I was instrumental in deselecting a Tory MP. Then I fought tooth and nail to select a man with my politics. Then I fought and worked to get him elected.
I was so successful that I was put on the Tory Chairman Fowler blacklist as a âtroublemakerâ.
You seem to believe you can just state what you want and it will be delivered – you have to fight, you have to canvass until your feet bleed. You have to interview EVERYONE.
If you think the country and your politics are worth it, you do that, free of charge (it costs you money) and for precious little thanks.
May 1, 2024
Well said Ray! Everywhere you look you find a Conservative MP telling us how dreadful things are, and what great ideas they have to fix it. One question – who’s been in charge the last FOURTEEN years
May 1, 2024
No Conservative has been âin chargeâ for 14 years. Indeed no Conservative has been in charge for 34 years, else we would not be in this mess.
May 1, 2024
You are confusing quantity with quality.
The base rate effects a huge number of other policies and gives away power that rightly belongs in democratic hands.
Brown should have stuck to scripture. He was an unsophisticated country clergyman who was handing over powers he didnât fully understand.
When we say âNo Brown in townâ itâs not a fashion statement, itâs saying country bumpkinâs brains grew up counting cows and didnât develop in a way that can model complex long term consequences in their head.
May 1, 2024
Brown’s decision to tax dividends inside pension funds has also had disastrous long term consequences. It not only destroyed the basis of final salary schemes (an important source of personal savings) but also removed a huge source of capital that helped fund London’s equity markets. That measure, combined with misplaced regulatory zeal and high taxes, contributed to the inexorable decline of the London markets and investment in UK companies. Capital flight has happened (just look where investment trusts invest) and listed companies are following in increasing numbers. No doubt the prospect of another Labour government is spurring them on.
May 1, 2024
Gordon Brown the economic âgeniusâ who sold the countries gold off at the bottom of the market and even announced it in advance to push the price down further. Obviously he had not understood his economics lectures much.
About as daft as writing to the illegal migrants. âIdiot civil servant sent 3,557 Channel migrants ‘you’re off to Rwanda’ letter and now they’ve vanishedâ says Kelvin MacKenzie.
May 1, 2024
The civil service does not want to send anyone to Rwanda. But consider, the 3,557 could now well be in Dublin.
May 1, 2024
Theyâre saying that the chap who was bribed by this government with ÂŁ3k to go to Rwanda, has already be approached by the traffickers saying for ÂŁ1k they could get him back in blighty âŠ.that leaves him with ÂŁ2k
May 1, 2024
LL,
The govt lost 62% of the 5,700 they were seeking to resettle in Rwanda. I say resettle because instead of deporting these criminals who entered our country illegally Sunak gives them ÂŁ3,000 of our taxes to resettle them! This is our taxes! ÂŁ3,000 hand out after being fed and housed in four star hotels! This is because Sunakâs legislation does not work because of the failings Braverman highlighted ie ECHR and no not withstanding clauses to prevent legal challenge. So Sunak is now bribing them to leave!
JR, your party needs to hang its head in shame. Whether it is the BOE, WHO, EU or overseas aid your party is determined to waste our taxes by the billion. You talk about increasing productivity etc, for what? To grab more of our hard earned money in taxes to waste! Is there anyone in govt capable of running an economy based on sensible spending and low taxes? We literally cannot afford your party of idiots in govt. Just get out.
May 1, 2024
But he did “save the world”!
May 1, 2024
but he DID insist ‘no childen should go hungry’ – I don’t recall any recent politician repeating that, although when that poor footballer Rashford in his own way tried to do something about it ( his own upbringing), the heavens opened in criticism.
May 1, 2024
Joining the Labour Party is surely a good indication you have not understood economics or have the world goes wrong. But then the Tory party is stuffed with moronic socialists and pushers of green crap like Gove, Boris, Cameron, Sunak, MayâŠtoo.
Rees-Mogg on his show yesterday was talking sense about energy and net zero but even he does not go far enough. They had a survey 96% of their viewer want to scrap net zero yet circa 96% of MPs support it? Once again the public (viewers) are surely right.
May 1, 2024
Conservative MP Dan Poulter defected to Labour saying Tories are ‘nationalist party of the right’.
What is he on about they a globalists (not nationalist), tax to death socialists (nothing remotely right about them) pushers of net zero lunacy, open door (1.2m PA gross immigrationPA), with the highest tax rates for 70 years and vast over regulation. They have moved way to the left even since he joined them inspired by Cameron it seems.
May 1, 2024
What an absolute (disaster?ed) Dan Poulter is. He served as a parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department of health between 2012 and 2015, I only know this because I had to look him up, I hadn’t heard of him. He has been a Conservative MP for 14 years until he defected, yet suddenly, after taking coin as a conservative for 14 years, the Tories can’t be trusted with the NHS! he says. He’s a qualified hospital doctor, a psychologist so he knows precisely what he is doing. There’s nothing worse than a rat. Your party gave Anderson no choice, you sacked him.
Sunak said the government’s record on the NHS was one of investment. But Poulter says he is wrong. I’ve just read four articles about Poulter, he says in the Guardian the Tories have ‘become a nationalist party of the right” and “it has abandoned compassion and no longer prioritises the NHS’. In the case of the NHS, he said, the partyâs focus on preventive care, child health and the social causes of poor health were key.
âOne of the things I really like about Labour party policy on the NHS is the focus on the social determinants of poor health and actually recognising that tackling poverty, poor housing, all those issues, particularly giving children from poorer backgrounds better chances and focusing on child health,â he said. âThat is something Labour understands that the Conservatives really donât â and that, for me, is something that makes the Labour party the party that can be trusted with delivering the reforms that are needed to get the NHS back on its feet.â
So where are the facts, Sunak? Are you spending ÂŁ165m a year now? Because spending, we are told, has rocketed. Devolved regions have been allowed to rack up the biggest waiting lists to make the government look bad with no blowback on them. Why? Why have the Tories just given up? Just how much has the benefit bill for those under pension age gone up? How much has Universal credit to address child poverty gone up to? Did the child premium get spent on the poorest or not, I read the poorest in London and big cities had been getting pupil premium resulting to more poor children than ever going to the best universities.
May 1, 2024
I just need to point out that Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, there are crossed sheep bones carved into the pediment over the front door of the house.
May 1, 2024
fascinating.
May 1, 2024
Have I missed something?
May 1, 2024
But he was good at timing the sale of Gold having told the traders in advance and of course….. saved the world!
May 1, 2024
No accountability at the Bank of England nor at the OBR. They can act to bring down or undermine any PM they choose should public policy not suit their ideological agenda. They can do this by various means. Selling large lines of bonds to drive up rates or basically lying using dodgy forecasts to create a picture damaging to the current incumbent in No.10
May 1, 2024
The Treasury, Government and I dare say Sir J were perfectly happy for the BoE to transfer it’s PROFIT on Gilts to the Treasury when it made them. The fact that it goes both ways seems to bring out the surprise, shock/horror of the plan.
The long and short of it is, we need to get rid of the excess Money, M1….5 if you wish, to reduce asset value inflation, and perhaps even reverse it. This will mean higher bond yields and therefore higher interest rates. Look at our average Base Rate over the last 50 years at about 9%.
May 1, 2024
When I worked for a living Peter, my Employer expected the businesses I managed to make a profit, not a loss. This became even more important when it was my own business.
The BoE (and the people employed within it) work for you and me (at least in theory) and personally I don’t expect them to make a loss – certainly not an avoidable one.
May 1, 2024
I do wonder about the BoEs delay in bringing down interest rates, which has resulted in fixed term mortage rates going back up last week. Obviously not connected with any upcoming elections…
May 1, 2024
So if the way the BoE is acting is not the fault of Gordon Brown and Labour then whose fault is it ? Why donât you name them ?
May 1, 2024
History led to the muddle that now prevails. The matter in hand is to sort it out to prevent worse.
May 1, 2024
If Sunak and Hunt wanted to stop the Bank of England transferring its losses to taxpayers, they’d have done it.
May 1, 2024
@Donna – +1, it is clear they have refused just as they refuse to ‘manage’
May 1, 2024
They can stop them MAKING the losses donât you see?
May 1, 2024
Donna,
JR misses this point each time he writes a blog about his partyâs failings. Tory party CHOOSE to gold plate Labour policy and content for EU, WHO, UN to govern/decide policy for UK and quangos to implement their decisions while JRâs party create a narrative to sell to the public. Tory party is pitiful and not an ounce of conservatism in it.
Conspiracy theories yesterday failed to mention, Nadine Dorries account of who selects Tory PM, Sue Grey recommends effectively in ousting Johnson then becomes chief of staff for Labour! In what world is that proper impartial civil service? Cabinet secretary still in post after his improper comments about Johnson and his govt., why?
Astrazenica admitting in court of blood clot side effects- govt repeatedly claiming conspiracy theories, totally safe lies etc etc.
What does the sham covid inquiry tell us of our security services if they are unable to ascertain where covid came from and how it was leaked? Are the security forces meant to help protect us physically, economically, politically and socially?
Reply The point of todays piece is to remind the government that the Bank of England is not independent when it comes to making losses from selling bonds! Do try and follow the plot.
May 1, 2024
Reply to reply: Is that a bit like âthe planâ is working! How many more years will your plot take to convince the idiots in govt. to change Labour policy?
As I see it, you have months left before annihilation and then Labour, if elected, will carry on in exactly the same way. Lock step to EU, implement anything EU.
Shapps yesterday in talks with EU to help build EU military defence from Russia, or is it a con to convince the public the UK must be part of an EU defence. The same idiotic man who failed to deliver HS2 and brought in ULEZ across the country!
May 1, 2024
Net zero risks crushing businesses, warns Claire Courtinho, if imposed the âwrong wayâ. Pray tell us Claire what is the right way that will not crush industry, export jobs, damage our defence, impoverish high energy users and freeze pensioners? The whole, entirely pointless and net harm, agenda needs to be ditched now.
Sitting on the fence is rather pathetic you must surely know this Claire you are not a complete fool. Even the dire Humza Useless finally realised this.
May 1, 2024
LL,
Does the idiot realise we no longer have the ability to manufacture steel! She and her govt has set our country back before the Industrial Revolution! Does she realise she is part of a govt. transferring manufacturing, technology and jobs east? This does not help the planet one jot. What does she think Chinese people at our universities are doing? Has she or the govt. learned anything from Elon Musk and his experience of Chinese workers at his Tesla business? They left and went back to China taking technology back to help buildâŠâŠ. Chinese electric cars! You would think after the two arrests for Chinese espionage linked to her party she might wake up!
May 1, 2024
They had the same problem with Apple looking at getting into the car/self driving business. Their Chinese graduates left taking their knowledge and secrets back to China. When will our politicos catch up, educating 120000 Chinese students whilst not allowing or encouraging our own English students. We are reaching critical stupidity in Westminster, bankrupting the Country on their alters of DEI, ESG, and climate change with a big dose of wokery in all our institutions. We can all forsee the problems why can’t the Uni Party?
May 1, 2024
All I remember about Gordon Brown is that he sold off our gold reserves at lock down prices. Not a very good manager I would say. However, I give him credit, or the person who suggested it, for giving us the 10% tax take which helped people like me to make our pennies go further paying increasing bills. Your party should have seen this as a vote catcher instead of taxing us on the little earnings some of us have from our pensions we saved into to avoid poverty.
May 1, 2024
@Linda Brown – he also sold off the UK’s World leading nuclear power capability saying we didn’t need it, we now have to pay twice for the same by buying the technology from France. He also gave us the ‘Financial Crisis’ to bailout his mate ‘Fred the Shred’ – we are still paying down that debt he created.
May 1, 2024
If Brown hadn’t crushed pensions you would have had more money to pay the bills.
He started well but then gorged off the fat he created and ended up losing it all.
May 1, 2024
He kept us out of the Euro too. That was worth more than the losses on sold-off gold etc.
May 1, 2024
See the excellent book – Gordon is a Moron: The Definitive and Objective Analysis of Gordon Brown’s Decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer Paperback â by Vernon Coleman (Author)
May 1, 2024
The Telegraph this morning.
Taxpayer to fork out ÂŁ85bn to cover Bank of England losses
30 April 2024 âą 6:59pm
Congratulations Sir John. Amazing what one man can do.
A lesson for us all.
May 1, 2024
Agreed. If only the other 649 would do too.
May 1, 2024
+1
May 1, 2024
Still very cheap compared to the vast costs and totally negative “benefits” of Sunak & May’s Net Zero insanity.
May 1, 2024
Goodness me, the BoE gets back the money that it CREATED in the first place….
It must be so happy to see it come back, I wonder what it’ll do with it….
May 1, 2024
It does not get the same money back. The money it âcreatedâ went to the Government, the money it âgets backâ comes from the taxpayer.
See the problem?
The issue is not about what the BOE will do with the money âit gets backâ – the issue is what will we will do without the money we need for investment, living costs, etc etc etc. Donât forget the Government closed the private sector down – only the corporate and some of the state sector (the partying part) remained active, so our income wa stolen from us, so donât tell me the Government gave the money to the taxpayers.
May 1, 2024
Your tax dollars at work
May 1, 2024
Sir John
Following the thread, this new department spawned another new department, then another and so on. But, where is the democratic control over things that affect everyoneâs not only Daily life but their future as well?
Who gets to decide what an expert is, a qualification is? It would appear it is just more layers that shouldnât be there, the only reasoning is to give jobs-to-the-boys. From the same source we have the half-heated devolution of powers by creating more extreme layers â when all that was needed was the Shires/Counties, towns, cities, parishes would be allowed to get on with providing what their constituents want â centralized socialism being forced to âbut-outâ.
From Blair onwards all endeavours at the center have been to destroy, people, economies and futures. The only point being that some how leadership is not about serving but personal self-esteem, or maybe just personal vendettas. It has never been about the people, the country.
May 1, 2024
I confirm no replies received from either the Chancellor or Governor to the letters using your draft per the 21 April diary. Overcome by remorse and unable to write perhaps?
May 1, 2024
Interest rates do indeed drive the economy and Labour will find any independence of the BoE frustrating as it loosens, keeps inflation in the 4-5% range, (“far better than the Conservatives managed”) and pulls in CGT left right and centre to fund the Client state.
All started with Sunak handing out goodies in 2020-21
May 1, 2024
If the cats away the mice will play
Everything was done in clear sight of the chancellor and signed off by treasury
I find it hard to believe that the BoE was selling off billions of bonds on the cheap and that the treasury was unaware; even a telephone call âŠthe treasury might have withheld that data from the chancellor, but thatâs another story
May 1, 2024
Those of the right are attracted to freedom, a small state and wealth creation employment. Those of the left are attracted to control, a big state and jobs which spend taxpayer money. As Mrs. Thatcher said âThe problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.â This is the basis of are Robert Conquestâs 2nd and 3rd laws of politics.
Blair and Brown and their heirs Cameron, Osborne and May all understood this and that the expansion of bureaucracy (the Civil Service) and unelected quangos, such as the CCC, the OBR and the giving of further powers to the BoE and the Treasury etc. would, through stochastic entryism from graduates indoctrinated by our left dominated universities, would lead to the country being dragged further towards a controlled, impoverished socialist state.
May 1, 2024
I see the NHS is posting job adverts which say “Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications” for Admin & IT roles. They cannot attract Brits to work for their dysfunctional organisation so are bringing in Indian nationals. Not because the country is short of the skills. Its completely political social engineering.
Madness, sheet absolute madness.
May 1, 2024
They donât take politicians or elite jobs âŠ..its always the unskilled working class jobs, no wonder people are angry
May 1, 2024
The Independence was compromised by the selection of leftist economists who, as in every area of the British commons, select like minded people. We’ll never get an economist who has studied Hayek or von Mises or Patrick Minford on the Monetary Committee. Group thinkers who can blame politicians who claim to control inflation.
May 1, 2024
A revue of the BoE’s role is long overdue . The capability of its staff has been exposed to be incapable of the trust placed in it ; the Treasury and its Boss are to blame ; meanwhile the public and industry – the main sufferers can do nothing . Sir John has for some considerable period of time complained and exposed the turmoil created by publishing the faults and the top of the tree have not responded ; is it any wonder that the polls have exposed their disgust .
May 1, 2024
Apart from him selling all our gold at a bargain basement price, the main thing I remember about Gordon Brown is that he destroyed private workers pensions by abolishing the dividend tax credit reclaim.
Your 14 years in power have been spent in not reversing this.
May 1, 2024
@MWB +1 everyone knew he was a disaster, yet here we are 14 years on with an outfit that has the temerity to call itself a Conservative Government, in denial or simply refusing to rebalance the situation. In fact they have gone to the left of Blair/Brown created a high tax and spend government without a single interest taking any responsibility for just their own actions
May 2, 2024
Nigel Farage said that City traders refer to the low point of huge waste caused by Gordon Brownâs reckless selling of UK gold as: âThe Brown Bottomâ. It was not a dance or a joke, but a technical term used by colleagues as a label similar to âWall Street Crashâ.
Many will recall Gordon Brown releasing a video about the time of Hazel Blearâs wearing her âDonât Rock the Boatâ badge. It started with his feigned smile and nervous laugh that was so spooky it disturbed many who asked themselves âIs this person a suitable leader?â
Gillian Duffy held him to account.
May 1, 2024
It’s obvious, given the disastrous decisions made by the BoE, their power should be reduced to the same level as those of civil servants, who are there to advise, but it is the Minister who actually decides.
Ministers are elected by British citizens, BoE officials are not. It’s time to revert to democracy.
May 1, 2024
Knowing how badly the Brown changes worked, why hasn’t HMG done something to correct the situation?
Did the Tories oppose the changes or were they simply following like sheep?
May 1, 2024
And yet Brown’s policies ensure the exact opposite, setting the scene for what, even now, is befalling us.
May 1, 2024
Sorry, O/T: I won the jackpot today. In my mail box:
Global war on farming: Stalin returns (conservativewoman.co.uk)
Net Zero Kills British Industry (spiked-online.com)
Thereâs No Good Reason to Abolish Cash (bigbrotherwatch.org)
Reject 15 Minute Cities (dailysceptic.org)
Climate Change Hoax (realclimatescience.com)
Boycott Shops & Pubs That Donât Take Cash (dailysceptic.org)
Six leaflets in one delivery: I wonder whether there is any link with the local elections tomorrow.
May 1, 2024
Osborne hired Carney, the first non-Briton to the role. He said leaving the EU would lead to a recession, Lamont and IDS warned him to be careful with his language and that his own words didn’t plunge us into a crisis, but he didn’t care.
Carney claimed his biggest success at the BoE was changing the way they made decisions, including the most junior people, inclusive decision-making with more diverse staff. Was that continued with his successor? It was important to Carney to reflect society at the BoE!
In the article in the Guardian, he said, âYou donât get rich in public service.â But Mark, I say, you were earning ÂŁ879,000 a year at the Bank of England. âI get it,â he says. âBut letâs be clear: I was asked to come and fix something. I didnât seek it out. âI didnât want to do it.â So why did he? âBecause it was a challenge. The financial system had basically failed. The new Bank of England had been put together, and I had a chance to make that work. Look, Iâm grateful, and I donât want to come across as⊠â His sentence collapses in on itself. âIt was an important experience, but it was not something I wanted to do.â
Even with all this endorsement and placement from Osborne, when asked who is the most impressive British politician, “Gordon Brown” he replied instantly!
May 1, 2024
The ONLY excuse for the BOE having autonomy regarding the maintenance of interest rates would have been if, when told to create hundreds of billions worth of gilts the BOE had responded that it could and would NOT on the grounds that the action would undermine their objective of maintaining inflation at 2% or less.
In other words, if Mervin King had been in place he might have scuppered Johnsonâs whole lockdown idiocy by causing politicians to comprehend that it was unaffordable.
Sadly the BOE missed the opportunity to justify their independent existence.
May 1, 2024
Yesterday 268 in 5 small boats ….better start selling some more bonds
May 1, 2024
I love reading the comments here. It reminds me of Batman on the TV. Bam! The government is useless! Smash! Give them a kicking!
Mr. Redwood – do you never tire of you and your government getting roundly condemned – dozens of times every day? Do your correspondents have not one positive thing to say about your party and your government? Itâs interesting to watch this endless self flagellation.
May 2, 2024
Let’s face it, John.
The current leadership of the Bank of England are going to maximise the losses for the present administration so that the decks are as clear as possible for their mates in the Labour Party.
And it does not appear that the present Chancellor shares your views on Conservative economic policy.
May 2, 2024
What about the notations by Fitch, Standard & Poor, and/or Moodyâs. The UK has moved from AA3 negative (perspective) to AA3 stable. Isnât this something to celebrate, or at least to consider, instead of the critical outlook that has been prevailing on this blog for more than six months?