The Today programme said it was about to interview the Governor of the Bank of England. I fear once again they will fail to ask him anything critical or central to the economic mess the government is in.So far they have failed to explore the big failings of the Bank on inflation and heavy losses.
The BBC usually has a craven approach to the Bank of England . It watched as the Bank printed too much money, held rates too low for too long and created an inflation that hit 5.5 times the target it was meant to keep to. The Bank failed to forecast this huge inflation until it was well set and happening.The BBC did not run the inflation warnings from critics then put them to the Bank.
Then the BBC watched as the Bank overdid its lurch to high interest rates to curb inflation by adding big sales of bonds it had paid too much for at huge losses. No other Central Bank did this. The Bank invaded fiscal policy, securing payment of all its losses by the government and taxpayers. Why?
Questions
Why did Bank make such huge errors in forecasting inflation ahead of the big inflation?
If the Governor counters by saying the inflation was not foreseeable because it was the Ukraine war and energy prices that did it, then ask
Why was inflation 3 times target before the Russian invasion?
Go on to
How did Switzerland, Japan and China keep inflation down to 2% despite being big energy importers?
Weren’t Switzerland, China and Japan Central Banks right not to announce new or enlarged programmes of money printing and borrowing 2020-22? Isn’t that how they kept inflation down ?
According to the latest OBR forecast the Bank will lose £288 bn on its bonds from Q3 2022 when they last made a profit to the end of the programme. Isn’t this an unacceptable burden on UK taxpayers who need to pay the bill?
Why doesnt the Bank stop selling bonds at a loss when holding them to repayment will recover a lot of that loss?
Why does the Bank offer the same interest rate to banks lending to it as it charges them for borrowing? Why not copy the ECB and commercial banks by having a gap between lending and borrowing rates?
What is the monetary policy purpose of selling the bonds? Why does no other Central Bank do it?
As the Bank printed money and bought bonds in order to cut interest rates and provide stimulus, why doesn’t it see that doing the opposite drives up rates and slows the economy?
If a large company boss planned losses of £288 bn would he or she get a bonus? etc
December 19, 2025
Sorry but off topic
Keir Starmer has been accused of running “scared” from voters yet again, after Labour moved to cancel yet more elections for millions of voters next year, as well as the local mayors elections, we are being run by dictatorship and the whole world is laughing at us, what’s needed is someone to organise mass marches around the country to show this bunch of rabble enough is enough we cannot carry on this road to disaster any longer we need change before it’s too late
Reply Cancelling elections is a very bad idea, along with abolishing juries.
December 19, 2025
And going against the supreme court judgment on women.
December 19, 2025
Well almost everything that Two Tier Starmer, Lammy, Miliband, Phillipson, Reeves do or intend to do are very bad ideas . A great shame the 14 years Con-Socialist betrayal, forced them into power.
We could also have a list of the Questions the BBC will never ask the government or state sector leaders about the clearly net harm Covid “Vaccine” statistics, the governments encouragement on anti-semitism, on the immigration levels, crime and costs, their 500 in 1 out deal with France, the appallingly run NHS, defence and defence procurement, their zero deterrent crime system, their attacks on free speech, their two tier police & justice system, their DEI discrimination agenda, Reeves Landlord Licensing crime, her doom loop agenda, the attacks on private schools, the absurd 31 months for Lucy Connolly and the lack of appeal for Lucy Letby. Finally they would never ask sensible question to Miliband on his Net Zero lunacy as the BBC especially on this topic is as deluded as he is!
Does anything run by the state in the actually UK work?
December 19, 2025
Two-Tier is behaving like a Dictator. Marches will achieve nothing; Dictators take no notice of demonstrations unless they approve of them: ie BLM, Just Stop Oil etc.
Two-Tier would probably ban them anyway.
A council tax strike would be illegal, but a council tax go slow would probably have an impact. Fail to pay on time and the recovery process generally follows these stages:
Reminder Notice: If you miss a payment, the council will send a reminder notice giving you at least 7 to 14 days to pay the overdue amount. If you pay within this time-frame, you can continue with your normal payment plan.
Second Reminder: If you miss another payment later in the financial year, a second and final reminder will be issued.
Final Notice/Loss of Instalments: If you miss a payment for a third time in the same financial year, you will lose the right to pay by instalments and must pay the entire remaining year’s Council Tax bill within 7 days.
Reply Not paying taxes due is a bad idea which can lead to prosecution and fines. Voting or standing in elections to control spending and lower taxes is a good idea.
December 19, 2025
+1
December 19, 2025
Budgeting…. sometimes the answer is to do very little or nothing.This Bull in a china shop approach will probably lose them the next election where they will not be able to realise the damaging plan.
December 19, 2025
Can’t the HoL call in the Govenor to answer questions? The country needs a 2nd chamber that can expose blinding folly, when the 1st chamber won’t do it.
December 19, 2025
+1
December 19, 2025
FCA and FOS being crap is also obvious and unremarked on by the blob.
Banking system which does not work, including silly low cash withdrawal limits, and account transfer limits. As if the blob owns our money.
December 19, 2025
Indeed the dire Bailey was head of the FCA when they changed to rules and the main banks personal overdraft rates were forces up to 39% or even 70% ! Prior to that mine was at base plus 1.5% nothing we can do said the bank new FCA regulations!
Where is any fair competition! Why one rate for all regardless of credit worthiness?
December 19, 2025
The BBC has nothing in it’s charter that says it should get involved in economics. It’s brief is to educate, amuse and inform. The BBC is scrupulously impartial – criticising it for failing to press the BoE on economic policy is disingenuous. How many of the millions of listeners that tune in to “Today” on R4 know anything about the Bank’s brief? Most folk are only interested in the news about how much their mortgage payments will reduce with the Bank’s latest cut in interest rates.
There are other, more effective ways to press the BoE on it’s performance. Using the BBC as a proxy to do so is pointless
December 19, 2025
SG but the BBC loves getting people like Farage etc eith their Gotcha questions. They are like dogs after a bone when interviewing someone from the opposition. You really are watching a different channel if you think the corrupt cesspit of the BBC is impartial.
December 19, 2025
A sick joke Mr Gold. Nothing either in it’s charter that says it should get involved in POLITICS, yet it not only pushes certain views, but will not offer opposing or balanced views. It also covers international politics with slanted opinions -no balance.
December 19, 2025
Well most people are going to be disappointed, their fixed rate loans are based on, in large part, the 10 year Gilt yield, not the BoE base rate, and that hasn’t changed much. In fact it rose after the base rate cut.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-bond-yield,
PS, still not looking at Liquidity Sir J, that’s the main job of the BoE. So far, no need for more QE, but with Starmer/Reeves it can’t be far away.
December 19, 2025
“The BBC is scrupulously impartial”! Sure some humour from Mr Gold!
Vast bias from the dire BBC on the Climate Scam, the economy, immigration levels, DEI lunacy, the wars on motorists, landlords, private school users, on Brexit, Farage and Trump, on Lucy Letby, on free speech/Lucy Connolly essentially the BBC are pure propagandists for Labour’s mad policies as they largely were for the Con-Socialists rather similar policies before them.
The BBC or biased and wrong on nearly every issue!
December 19, 2025
In recent years the BBC has simply been a mouthpiece for government instructions to the public. At times its investigative journalism is impressive but at other times it’s completely absent. Many people just believe anything the BBC broadcasts and those in real power will hope this continues into the future.
December 19, 2025
How many of those million tuning into Radio 4 are being told the facts SG? Isn’t that their job too?
Frankly I’ve stoped listening to R4. It really wasn’t helping my temper hearing complete nonsense being spouted but never challenged. Surely, the BBCs Charter also involves seeking the truth and making it available to it’s audience. There was a time when I trusted “Auntie” but I’m afraid that time is long past.
December 19, 2025
To educate, amuse and inform – well hardly.
Rather amusing when the BBC staff claims it is impartial they can even do it with a straight face. We force you to fund us so we can use the money lie to you almost every single day. A blatant propaganda outfit!
December 19, 2025
@SG.If the “scrupulously impartial” BBC’s remit is education, perhaps it ought to educate those millions of R4 listeners on how the BoE manipulates interest rates, and for what purposes?
December 19, 2025
John
You pose some interesting questions, which you have shared with your readers before, but no one seems to want to take this up, ask questions, or discuss it further.
The sums you talk of are massive when compared to the Tens of £billions Labour are trying to raise by additional taxation in the past two Budgets.
Is there a conspiracy of silence, because the Conservatives did not want to talk or question the BOE either.
Why this silence from successive Chancellors ?
Does the Government not want the World to know the BOE made a huge error, which may threaten future confidence in our banking system ?
You are aware because banking is in your blood and background, were you the only one in Parliament with such knowledge at the time, although I recall Farage and Tice have both mentioned it quite recently, but taken it no further.
Why has the the BOE not been asked to stand before a Select Committee.
Seems to me that the one of the biggest financial disasters in our history, is being deliberately kept away from being aired in Public by a code of silence, or you are wrong !
December 19, 2025
Well lots of other even larger disasters – net zero, the net harm Covid Vaccines, the Covid Lockdowns and soft loans, the student “loans” for largely duff degrees, the counterproductive wars, the two aircraft carriers, the net cost open door immigration levels, the sick joke NHS especially maternity care, the largely Pakistani rape gangs that were hidden by the authorities, Heath taking us into the EU for 40+ years with no authority to do so, the Windsor accord…
December 19, 2025
I think also think the BBC needs to ask the Governor for his thoughts about the Equation of Exchange: MV=PQ. It is this equation which caused the inflation in 2021 and 2022 and it was referenced to and discussed at the time. Simply put, the money supply when spent (MV) inflated the P (= prices) and Q (= quantity purchased). Naturally the ‘P’ part is the inflation factor.
The Governor definitely knows of this equation and he definitely knew about it ahead of agreeing to increase the money supply in 2020 and 2021 (ie QE). I would be keen to know why he was not attentive to the inflationary effects of such a gigantic QE programme and why did he persist with that QE programme through to December 2021 when inflation had taken off in August 2021?
December 19, 2025
The Today programme and the BBC generally have increasingly self-degraded during the last 20 years or so. They are frequently unworthy of broadcasting.
December 19, 2025
Another question that needs asking is-
Does the BoE accept that it contributed to the September 2022 crisis on Gilts , the product of the pension funds covering their LDI exposure , something sparked off by the bank announcing the policy of £80billion of Quantitative Tightening the day before the Truss / Kwarteng budget?
In addition it needs to asked –
In what way was a fuel crisis not a stable picture , for in the Monetary Policy Committee the month before the announcement of the £80bn QT policy , said the bank would only do this if the markets were stable?
December 19, 2025
How does a forecast loss of £288 billion over five years go unremarked? That is HS2 built to Inverness (although not in five years given our health and safety and environmental laws).
December 19, 2025
“As the Bank printed money and bought bonds in order to cut interest rates and provide stimulus, why doesn’t it see that doing the opposite drives up rates and slows the economy?”
It DOES see that. It’s just that raising rates in that way is a far more hidden way of trying to reduce inflation than changes in the headline interest rate which gets wide coverage.
December 19, 2025
Questions not asked:
Why has the USA not suffered the productivity drop that the UK has?
Why have the countries you mention handled his headwinds so much better than the UK?
They never do compare and contrast questions, so interviewees let off hook.
December 19, 2025
Following the £billions that the hopeless MoD have blown on the Ajax disaster, selling off RN amphibious ships to Brazil on the cheap after spending £70m on a refit, the RAF’s RC-135W Rivet Joint fiasco – where the MoD ordered 5 sets of radars but only bought 3 aircraft, yet another procurement cock-up is in the offing.
The BAE next generation fighter Tempest (aka FCAS) is next. Recent reporting has described FCAS as being in serious difficulty, with officials now seeing the programme’s Next Generation Fighter at risk of collapse. Ministerial talks in mid-December reportedly failed to unlock Phase 2 of the programme, leaving key industrial contracts unsigned and political declarations unconverted into binding agreements.
Unless the government finds the money to support the Tempest programme, other countries (Germany) will gain access to it. Which means more design complications, less build work here in the UK, delays and cost overruns. Have we heard this before?
December 19, 2025
Rather like being stuck with a useless Government for five years, we are stuck with this Govenor of the BoE for eight. Bailey’s track record prior to his appointment was less than stellar at the FCA and there were better candidates available. It’s a mystery to me why he was ever selected.
His predecessor is now PM in Canada but was another dismal choice at the BoE. I still think the Canadians will regret electing Carney, if they ever see past their hatred of Trump…
December 19, 2025
I heard some of the interview. It was depressing.
It was an echo chamber where a journalist in a left-leaning/socialist organisation was talking to a left-leaning Governor.
Therefore there were no fresh insights and no answers to the questions Sir John and most of us want answers to.
What a waste of time.
No wonder Labour/BBC are dying.