Monkeys could run the Bank of England better than its current bosses
Bank planks
MONKEYS could run the Bank of England better than its current bosses.
They could hardly do worse.
The Bank is serially incompetent and we are all paying the price.
It knows it was far too slow to react when inflation first rose in early 2021.
Boss Andrew Bailey dismissed it as a blip.
He refused to hike interest rates, his one weapon, from a rock-bottom 0.1 per cent.
When he did finally stir himself, it was too late to control the surge.
The £575,000-a-year chief feebly begged Britain not to worsen matters by asking for a pay rise to match.
His chief economist has told us to accept we are poorer.
Britain is suffering for their glib complacency.
Not only has the Bank had to increase rates yet again, to a level unseen in 15 years, but none of its previous ones have yet made a dent.
Inflation is still a crippling 10.2 per cent — five times the Bank’s target and higher than anywhere in the developed world.
And that’s only part of its failure.
Its forecasts, relied on by Governments, economists and businesses, are provably worthless.
Six months ago it glumly predicted a year-long recession.
Yesterday it suddenly forecast two years of growth instead . . . a total reversal.
When it now says inflation will be down to 5.12 per cent by the year’s end, why believe a word?
This may be a parlour game to Bank suits on mega salaries.
For ordinary people and firms it has dire consequences.
It’s not just soaring prices, mortgages and loans.
It’s our confidence over the future.
Some businesses will have thrown in the towel, fearing the recession the Bank predicted.
All, apparently, for nothing.
Bailey should be ashamed of himself.
Banana split
WOULD society crumble if more curved bananas were sold in shops?
We ask, because we are told 4,000 EU laws cannot now be binned without causing legal mayhem.
At least that’s the view of obstructive civil service Remainers keen to make rejoining easier for a future Labour-led Government.
And one supposedly sacred rule is the infamously pointless diktat over curvier examples of the popular yellow fruit.
No wonder some Tories are furious.
The argument for abandoning their promised bonfire of Brussels red-tape has slipped up on a banana skin.
Migrant woe
THERE was outrage when net annual migration hit 350,000.
If that has doubled when the latest figures are released, Rishi Sunak can expect an explosion of anger.
It would prove that, far from controlling our borders, we are importing foreign workers at a jaw-dropping rate vastly higher than our housing, transport and NHS can ever hope to handle.
Say it ain’t so, PM.