{"id":38814,"date":"2017-09-28T12:24:01","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T11:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=38814"},"modified":"2017-09-28T12:24:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T11:24:01","slug":"why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/09\/28\/why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Bank of England\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s independence is just a charade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2015\/08\/24\/why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first posted this blog <\/a>on 24 August 2015. I offer it again because it is particularly relevant today given all the nonsense that will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/live\/2017\/sep\/28\/bank-of-england-independence-theresa-may-mark-carney-ed-balls-business-live\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">be offered<\/a> to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Bank of England's supposed independence:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I argued on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning that the Bank of England\u2019s independence from the Treasury is just a charade. It was always designed to appease the stupidity of the bond vigilantes. This is why. It is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/1998\/11\/section\/19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Section 19 of the Bank of England Act 1998<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2015\/08\/24\/why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade\/screen-shot-2015-08-24-at-09-16-08\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-30318\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-30318\" src=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08-550x76.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08-550x76.png 550w, http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08-300x42.png 300w, http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08-800x111.png 800w, http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08-200x28.png 200w, http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-24-at-09.16.08.png 1526w\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 09.16.08\" width=\"650\" height=\"90\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To put it another way: they have independence so long as they do what the Treasury wants or independence can be suspended at any time.<\/p>\n<p>And that is precisely why the Bank of England has always done what the Treasury wants, as I said. They really don\u2019t have much choice in the matter.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time we talked economic reality and not the silly games people have played in pursuit of neoliberalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first posted this blog on 24 August 2015. I offer it again because it is particularly relevant today given all the nonsense that will<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/09\/28\/why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade-2\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,136,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banking","category-city-of-london","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}