The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has voted to keep interest rates at 5% in a widely expected decision. Sticky inflation and a rise in the core rate yesterday didn’t buoy hopes for another cut…

Breakdown: 8-1 to leave rates on hold. Last month it was 5-4 to cut.

The Bank dropped interest rates for the first time last month after 14 consecutive hikes, while the Fed cut its rate by a whopping half a point this week. No continuation of that doveish mood this time round. The markets only had it at 10% that a surprise cut was on the way…

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has voted to cut rates to 5% in a hotly anticipated decision. The markets had it at 65% that rates would go down…

It was a 7-2 split last time to hold at 5.25%. Now it’s 5-4 to cut. Sitting since August last year, they’ll come down from their highest level since 2008 after 14 consecutive hikes. Starmer’s genie strikes again…

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has voted to hold interest rates at 5.25%, as expected. Sitting since August last year, they will remain for yet another month at their highest level since 2008, after 14 consecutive hikes. With CPI inflation at the target level of 2% there is now the clearest case for getting rates down…

The split in the vote is still 7-2, which was up from 8-1 two months ago. Now waiting for August…

Political swings coincide with rate reductions. It’ll be too late for Sunak…

44 Tory MPs from the Thatcherite Conservative Way Forward group have been crunching the numbers on the Bank of England’s performance since 2022. And have concluded that it’s cost every UK household a whopping £5,546…

What the CWF calls the “Bank of England Surcharge” is split into two. The first component is based on the Bank’s failure to keep inflation at its 2% target, which is essentially its only job. It has overshot in 2022 and 2023 by 1.95x compared to a basket of average competitors. Adding the cost of that inflation to household bills shows that £32.2 billion, or £1,185 per household, was wiped out in the two year period. They claim it’s what the Bank did next that caused the real damage…

The report slams the current system of executing Quantitative Tightening, which involves the taxpayer covering the Bank’s huge losses as it sells off its long-term bonds rather than letting them mature – something that the CWF says only eight other governments around the world do, none of them first-world. The group blasts the BoE for “being allowed to spend taxpayers’ money as if it were a government department” and calculates that the losses covered by the taxpayer from 2023-5 will reach £46 billion, or £4,361 per household. More than the entire annual expenditure of the MoD…

CWF chairman Greg Smith says: “The Chancellor can do something about this. The Treasury is not powerless to stop this. The Bank of England has always been insistent that the Treasury is the ultimate guarantor and the Bank of England acts as its agent when it determines QE and QT policy.” The group has had Hunt’s ear before – the buck stops with him…

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has voted to hold interest rates at 5.25%, as expected. Sitting since August last year, they will remain for another month at their highest level since 2008, after 14 consecutive hikes. With CPI inflation at 3.2% there is serious pressure to finally bring rates down…

Last month saw an increasingly dovish mood with an 8-1 majority voting to leave rates on hold – the one dissenter voting for a cut. This month the split is 7-2. The doves are gaining ground…

The Institute of Economic Affairs’ “Shadow Monetary Policy Committee” is pushing for a 0.5% cut, warning that a slow money supply will impede growth and risk deflation. The data shows that political swings coincide with rate reductions – Sunak will be hoping for movement from the bank soon…

It pays to be the banker. Some members of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, responsible for monitoring and maintaining financial stability, are taking the taxpayer for a bit of a ride when it comes to their travelling habits. Carolyn Wilkins, external committee member and former Mark Carney deputy at the Bank of Canada, has racked up an eye-watering 107,537 in travel expenses, mostly on business class flights, since her appointment three years ago. That’s somewhere around 7,844% of what the average Brit spends on flights…

Wilkins has now been confirmed for another salubrious three years. Meanwhile, a different external member, former Federal Reserve board member Randall Kroszner, has racked up £41,999 in expenses in his first year in the role. That’s while enjoying a £98,200 salary as the taxpayer forks out £85 billion to cover the cost of the bank’s quantitative easing programme…