Waiting until August to move the rate dial is another Bank of England blunder, says ALEX BRUMMER By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail Updated: 17:00 EDT, 20 June 2024 e-mail View comments Doth the Bank of England protest too much? The minutes from the pre-election June session, at which the bank rate was held at 5.25 per cent, make the unheroic point that ‘the timing of the General Election was not relevant to its decision’. Reading the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), one could be left with the distinct impression that the goalposts have moved.

Now that headline inflation is bang on 2 per cent there is a great deal of guff about hitting the target ‘sustainably’ in the medium term. Speaking in Washington at the Institute of International Finance in April, governor Andrew Bailey argued it was possible for Britain and Europe to diverge from the US on interest rate policy. Cautious: The Bank of England has held its base rate at 5.

25%, insisting ‘the timing of the general election was not relevant to its decision’ Inflation in Europe has largely been supply driven, the result of the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine. Once the energy price distortion had vanished over the horizon, the path to lower borrowing cost was open. In America, inflation fears remained elevated because strong consumer and business demand was driving up goods and services prices.

Bailey’s judgement proved correct. Christine Lagarde at the European Central Bank ignored the upco.