A little ‘heartbreak’ but few surprises from Mervyn King

No great surprises from the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, at the Treasury Select Committee today, which is a bit sharper than it used to be, thanks to chair Andrew Tyrie and sparky contributions from the likes of Jesse Norman, Chuka Umunna and Andrea Leadsom, all new to the Commons, as well as the e longer established figures such as Michael Fallon.

Anyway, Mervyn told us what most of us already knew – that the banks still aren’t lending enough, there isn’t much competition in the area and inflation will stay above 2 per cent for “much of next year”.

Mr King said it was “heart breaking” to see the way some businesses were now being treated by their banks, the reverse of good “relationship banking”. Quite right too.

There are tensions, acknowledged by Mr King, within the Bank about what their next move should be, but the balance of opinion in the Monetary Policy Committee seems set to be “no change” for some time.

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• lambofthegreen

  Einstein had something to say to the effect that, it’s folly to continue repeating something that consistently fails; it does not take Einstein to know Governor King has been getting his forecasts wrong, understating inflation, for five years, so why is he still in the job ?

• Merlin007

  I quite agree.