This morning, Mark Carney – the Steve Bray of central bankers – used the BBC as his megaphone to belabour listeners with his opinion that leaving the EU is responsible for rising interest rates and sinking the pound. All par for the course…
Speaking to the Today programme, the former governor of the Bank of England congratulated himself on his clairvoyance:
“If I can cast your mind back to two years ago, this is what we said was going to happen…”
Carney’s numbers to justify this were, as Julian Jessop points out, spurious:
Here's @MarkJCarney's data, which suggest German GDP has grown by 40.9% since 2016, and UK GDP by only 3.3%.
— Julian Jessop (@julianHjessop) November 4, 2022
This is obviously wrong, even allowing for the fall in the pound. I suspect he's compared real (inflation-adjusted) GDP in the UK with nominal GDP in Germany! (2/3) pic.twitter.com/zCtQTiNT2I
Lord Lilley has written to Today, complaining about the interview and pointing out that they frequently allow the likes of Carney to bang on about Brexit uninterrupted – without challenging the improbable and illogical elements of their argument.
Dear Mr Stone-Lee,
Once again you had the Canadian banker, Mark Carney, on to attack Brexit. Given that the UK and Canada now have similar relationships with their continental neighbours (a free trade agreement leaving Britain and Canada free to make their own laws), why do you never ask the obvious questions?
If a simple free trade relationship with its neighbour is so damaging for Britain is it not equally damaging for Canada?
If we British would be 30% better off within the EU, wouldn’t his fellow countrymen be 30% better off if Canada joined the USA?
If he wants the UK to accept EU laws, does he advocate Canada submitting to US laws? And if not, why not?
The bias on Today goes from bad to worse. The reason you don’t ask these questions is your Remoaner groupthink means that, although objectively obvious, they never enter your blinkered minds.
Best regards
Peter Lilley
The Rt Hon the Lord Lilley
If a simple free trade relationship with its neighbour is so damaging for Britain is it not equally damaging for Carney’s native Canada?
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is coming under fresh fire over an imminent meeting with two of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s key sidekicks. Extraordinarily, Guido understands that Carney is due to meet a delegation from Maduro’s ruinous regime tomorrow including Calixto Ortega Sanchez, the self-styled “President” of the Venezuelan Central Bank, and Simon Zerpa, Maduro’s Finance Minister. The delegation want Carney to transfer them $550 million of gold held by the Bank of England. Nothing suspicious about that at all…
Ortega Sanchez was appointed by Maduro but never ratified by the Venezuelan National Assembly, who have accused him of “usurping” their authority. Zerpa was sanctioned by the US Government for stealing hundreds of million of dollars and is heavily involved in the many corruption schemes of the Venezuelan regime, including the FONDEN slush fund. Neither have the credentials for the roles they’ve been granted. Carney should not even be dignifying Maduro’s cronies with a meeting, let alone seriously be considering handing over $550m of gold to them.
Tory MP Andrew Lewer, who is Vice-Chairman of the Venezuela APPG, has written urgently to Carney and Philip Hammond, describing the meeting as “entirely inappropriate” and urging Carney not to “confer respectability on a regime placeman such as Calixto Ortega who is unlawfully seeking to present himself as a central bank president.” Lewer also warns that “any transfer of gold to the regime would be quite wrong, as the proceeds would either be used for corrupt personal enrichment of regime leaders, or intensified repression of the population, or both.” Carney has already tarnished the Bank’s reputation with his politicking on Brexit, this would take it to new depths…
Read Lewer’s letter in full here:
UPDATE: Interestingly, if Carney did hand over the cash it wouldn’t be the first time the Bank of England has handed over gold to a murderous regime in dubious circumstances…
The pessimists at the Bank of England slashed their growth forecasts almost immediately after the Brexit vote. The economy proved resilient, prompting an upwards revision from 0.8% to 1.4% in November. Today on the BoE’s Super Thursday the Bank yet again revises up its 2017 GDP growth forecast to 2%. Obviously this beats the predictions of all city economists. Michael Fish eat your heart out…
Some prize comments from Mark Carney which went under the radar in the excitement of Trump yesterday. The Bank of England governor now says he is “surprised” his forecast of an immediate post-Leave vote slump has not come true, admitting the BoE is “very likely” to improve its economic forecasts:
“Of course having got through the night the day after the scale of the immediate risks around Brexit have gone down.”
Apparently the EU now has more to worry about than us:
“there are greater financial stability risks on the continent in the short term for the transition than there are for the UK”
The stock market is enjoying a bull run and breaking all records. In November the BoE already doubled its forecast for 2017, the biggest single upgrade it has ever made to a prediction, and now it is likely to upgrade it again. Experts…
UK industrial production is up 2.1%, way up on a gloomy 1% estimate. The latest figures are for last November and year-on-year the indicator is now +2%. Experts wrong again…
The news comes after the Federation of Small Businesses reported its members confidence had “bounced back” after Brexit. Chairman Mike Cherry said:
“The current economic outlook seems brighter, and UK small businesses are ambitious and want to make the most of it.”
Brexit Britain confident and productive…
