We can only hope sluggish Andrew Bailey is awake now IMF says Bank of England must cut interest rates rapidly
Doom & boom
THE IMF is wrong far too often now for its forecasts to be taken too seriously.
It’s playing catch-up yet again after underestimating the resilience of our economy, as it has so often since the Brexit result it detested.
Its upwards revision to the UK growth prediction, putting us ahead of the EU’s major nations for SIX years, is a welcome correction.
But will it ever learn?
Anti-Brexit doom-mongers have been proven wrong time and again since 2016.
They still seem to be hoping failure will come if they keep praying for it.
Like the stopped clock that’s right twice a day, the IMF IS on the money over interest rates — which it says the Bank of England must cut rapidly now that inflation is almost tamed.
We can only hope the Bank’s sluggish chief Andrew Bailey is awake.
Just stop hate
PROTEST is an essential right.
But when a group sets out to break the law, like Just Stop Oil, or routinely and overtly incites racial hatred, like the Palestine hate marchers, enough is enough.
Extremism advisor Lord Walney, an ex-Labour MP, concludes the threat posed by such groups — blatantly defying the law and undermining democracy — has not been properly understood.
He rightly recommends their damaging protests be banned.
The radical Left have brought anger and fear to our streets too long, at vast cost and inconvenience to the public.
Time for the Government to act.
Baffled Beeb
ONLY the broken BBC could decide that Iran’s gratifyingly dead President Raisi left a “mixed legacy”.
The bloodstained Butcher of Tehran ordered the execution of 5,000 people.
He funded terror attacks globally.
He tortured and repressed Iran’s population for decades, forcing women to cover up and live as men’s property.
On the “plus” side, he was loved by other Islamist thugs.
So, yes, all in all it’s a mixed bag.
If you’re a confused liberal who cannot bring yourself to call Hamas “terrorists”.
Cry freedom
IMAGINE if anyone could sue you — and you had to pay their costs and yours even if you WON.
Incredibly, this blatant injustice already exists in law. It was designed to bully the Press into accepting State-backed regulation to avoid it. Most refused.
Politicians wanting a role in policing those who hold them to account? The danger to democracy was obvious.
The law was never enacted and the Tories rightly now aim to scrap it.
Today the Lords will debate it.
They must side with Press freedom.