Bank of England governor Mervyn King gave his prognosis for the UK economy today and it was pretty gloomy; saying that recovery might not start until next year even though lots of analysts think it’s on the way already.
He also said he expected inflation to stay low well into next year, which not a lot of other people agree with either.
King and his peers on the Monetary Policy Committee are still nursing their self-inflicted wounds from last year, when they ignored MPC member David Blanchflower’s warning that the UK was set for a stonking recession and interest rates needed to be cut.
They did cut of course, and sharply, but only when recession had taken hold without them noticing it.
King also said that ‘uncertainty’ made this a particularly difficult time to make forecasts. Which suggests to Mr Blatherskite that the bank was going to come out with a super-gloomy report and realised at the last minute that things were looking up.
So not much use to anyone really.