The Times Red Box email notes this morning that:
A big row has erupted this morning over the Bank of England. The former chancellors Lord Lamont and Lord Lawson and ex-Tory leaders Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Howard write in the Telegraph accusing Mark Carney of joining the Treasury in "peddling phoney forecasts and scare stories".
David Cameron was up early to tweet : "It's deeply concerning that the Leave campaign is criticising the independent Bank of England. We should listen to experts when they warn us of the dangers to our economy of leaving the European Union."
The row is interesting, especially to me as I was accused of threatening Bank of England independence last summer.
Let's be clear: first the Bank of England is not independent. That is a charade created by the Bank of England Act of 1998 which even then retains so many powers for the government that no one should have been fooled. The Governor is a convenient stooge.
Secondly, if the referendum debate is about democracy then the point should be made, loud and clear, that the Governor should be politically accountable or we really have given up sovereignty.
And third, when Carney goes, as surely he will if Osborne does, then these points will become very obvious.
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I heartily agree (!!!)
Exactly right Richard
The decisions regarding interest rates are closely correlated to government intentions and anyone who thinks otherwise is severely deluded.
Or a liar
What’s this? Leading figures in the Leave campaign accusing the Treasury of “peddling phoney forecasts and scare stories”. What on earth has the whole Leave campaign been other than scaremongering over immigration and sovereignty?
What a shameless bunch of hypocritical chancers.
But it’s the same Treasury, Banknqnd forecasting they have applauded until very recently
And these same intellectually and morally bankrupt people are (very probably) going to take us out of the EU, with all the economic and political chaos that is going to cause, because they can con a large enough number of people with their fraudulent campaign.
And all masterminded by Matthew Elliot, a Goebbels for the 21st century if ever there was one. Lovely.
As someone who likes to work out what the actual networks of connection and influence were in the past at personal level, to give the context to what is only recorded on paper, I have long felt that the veracity etc. of official records and formal correspondence often does not fit what was actually going on and who was involved. So in the past and recently, the position of The Bank of England and its actual decision making and influence may have varied widely from time to time in ways we do not appreciate. As well as the Bank itself and the government, who was who in The City and in other sectors have to be considered.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-856X.00054/abstract
Think this paper by political economist Peter Burnham is relevant
Just read that Abstract-this sentence seems germane to what we have witnessed over the last 40 years:
‘As a form of politics it seeks to change market expectations regarding the effectiveness and credibility of policy-making in addition to shielding the government from the consequences of unpopular policies.’
The idea of an ‘independent’ BoE fits perfectly into this narrative together with market fundamentalism telling us that when economies go wrong it’s like the weather turning bad.
‘Shysterism’ in short.
This Blair/Brown de-politicisation strategy puts the cart before the horse since it fails to acknowledge that Blair/Brown still believed Britain’s monetary system was subject to a legacy of Gold Standard rules, a very massive strategic mistake:-
http://hir.harvard.edu/debt-deficits-and-modern-monetary-theory/
It is bizarre how people can keep saying it is independent. It is de facto and de jure owned by HM Treasury. It is as independent as a five year old. As soon as something dangerous happens, the Treasury can take control via ‘reserve powers.’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England
“The Treasury has reserve powers to give orders to the committee “if they are required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstances” but such orders must be endorsed by Parliament within 28 days.”
@Richard Murphy – Richard, I think this blog’s RSS feed is not working properly. Showing an error on my feed reader.
I am having it checked out