Mark carney

In the runup to the referendum, we heard repeated warnings that, whatever the outcome of the actual vote, the damage to the UK economy had been done. The Bank of England, whose governor has been accused of becoming something of a fellow traveller for Project Fear, warned in its Monetary Policy Committee meeting in March that: ‘There appears to be increased uncertainty surrounding the forthcoming referendum on UK membership of the European Union’. In April, the BoE was at it again, downgrading second-quarter growth from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent. Warnings such as these risk of being self-fulfilling: if you talk about uncertainty, it’s hardly surprising that investors feel uncertain, creating a knock-on effect out of nowhere.

Did you see that odd photo of George Osborne looking shifty, queuing up in the Vietnamese jungle for the chance to fire an M60 machine gun? I found it interesting for a number of reasons. One, obviously, is that it’s probably the first time in five years Osborne hasn’t been pictured wearing a hard hat and goggles. Another is what it tells us about his earnings prospects on the US speaker tour circuit: those guns can fire up to 650 rounds a minute — so at the local tourist rate of £1 a bullet that’s quite an expensive cheap thrill. Mainly, though, what struck me about that snap was just how quickly fortune’s wheel can turn.

On Tuesday night in London, I spoke to Women2Win, a Conservative organisation dedicated to recruiting more women candidates. My title, suggested long ago, was ‘The Woman Who Won’. It referred to Margaret Thatcher. The day before my speech was delivered, another woman (and former chairman of Women2Win) won, so now there are two. Everyone seized the moment to compare and contrast them. There is a clear difference between Theresa May’s situation today and Mrs Thatcher’s in 1975. Mrs May, like Ted Heath in 1975, represents the side that just lost, Mrs Thatcher the side with a new idea about how to win. Mrs May is the establishment candidate: Mrs Thatcher was the insurgent.

Critics say the Bank of England put itself under suspicion by entering the referendum fray. Now Mark Carney says its warnings are being borne out by the post-referendum economic reaction. He misses the point. By having made those warnings himself, even if he sincerely believed them, he became like a politician trying to win, rather than a public servant trying honestly to manage either outcome. The more loudly he tries to vindicate himself and attack the motives of his accusers, the more clearly this is proved. It would damage confidence if Mr Carney were to leave his job suddenly, particularly if the government pushed him; but surely he should quietly be booking a flight home to Canada by Christmas. This is an extract from Charles Moore's Notes.

The Bank of England's decision to keep interest rates pegged at 0.5 per cent won't surprise anyone. What is more interesting, after today's row involving Mark Carney, is how much the Bank had to say about the EU referendum. Brexiteers hoping Mark Carney and the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee would keep quiet about next week's vote will be disappointed. In its meeting minutes, the MPC gives it both barrels when warning about the dangers of Brexit. The MPC says a vote to leave would send sterling's exchange rate tumbling. It goes on to add that: 'As the Committee set out last month, the most significant risks to the MPC’s forecast concern the referendum.

Although Mark Carney has warned that a Brexit is the 'biggest domestic risk to financial stability', his predecessor Mervyn King takes a somewhat different approach when it comes to the impending EU referendum. The former Bank of England governor used an appearance today at the Hay Festival to hit out at the 'wildly exagerated claims' made in the run-up to the vote. 'I wondered who would be the first to lower the tone,' King joshed when asked whether he thought Britain should stay or go.

Vladimir Putin's name has popped up again in the Brexit debate. This time, however, it wasn't the Prime Minister suggesting that the Russian president would favour Britain leaving the EU, but the Defence Secretary. Michael Fallon said Putin would 'Vote Leave' and he also told a Commons select committee that 'there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a British exit from the European Union would be applauded in Moscow'. He added that it would be a 'payday for Putin': Michael Fallon went on to say that being in the EU ensured that Russia had 'paid the price' for its intervention in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister gave a speech in which he said Brexit could ramp up the cost of a family holiday. But where was he planning on heading off to on his own summer trip?

It is, at times, unclear that George Osborne is aware that the under-30s are voting in this EU referendum. When he talks about house prices plummeting post-Brexit, he talks as if this will strike fear into everyone’s hearts. For older people seeking to downsize, this might be true – but for almost everyone else, it’s not. And when I hear the In side arguing that we should all be terrified of Brexit because it will cause house prices to fall, I can’t help but wonder if this is the best single reason to vote ‘out’. For most people my age, one of the worst changes in Britain has been the way property prices have spiraled out of control – indeed, how the economic system is conspiring against my generation.

Another day, another warning about the economic bombshell which would follow Brexit. This time it's the turn of the IMF. In a press conference at the Treasury, Christine Lagarde spoke of the outcome of a vote to leave the EU ranging from 'bad to very bad'. Whilst the IMF's report said: 'A vote to leave the EU would create uncertainty about the nature of the UK’s long-term economic relationship with the EU and the rest of the world. A vote for exit would precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility and a hit to output.' George Osborne was clearly grateful for the support of the IMF in the severity of their warning against Brexit.

The Bank of England isn’t going to butt out of the Brexit debate any time soon it seems. Today’s interest rate decision produced few surprises with the Bank sticking at 0.5%. But the headlines are focusing instead on its warning about the consequences of a vote to leave the EU. The wording about the dangers of Brexit was the starkest yet. The Bank of England said: ‘A vote to leave the EU could materially alter the outlook for output and inflation and therefore the appropriate setting of monetary policy. Households could defer consumption and firms delay investment, lowering labour demand and causing unemployment to rise’ As doomsday scenarios go, excluding the Prime Minister’s warning about World War three, they don’t come much darker than this.

Whatever might be said about the Governor of the Bank of England, it's hard to fault his persistence. Mark Carney has made a habit of wading into the debate surrounding the EU referendum. And based on his appearance in front of the Lords Economic Affairs Committee this afternoon, he isn't planning on stopping any time soon. Carney repeated the MPC's warnings about the 'threats' from the forthcoming referendum being 'the most significant near-term domestic risk to financial stability'.

In every gathering, someone — often me — calls for a show of hands on Brexit. And I have to report that, in the varied circles in which I move, ‘leave’ may have the best tunes but isn’t winning the argument. At a Mayfair fundraiser for a Jewish charity, the crowd of mostly thirty-to-fortysomething men in suits (and many in yarmulkes) was 90 per cent for ‘remain’; a former Tory minister was spotted waving both arms in a desperate bid to boost the ‘leave’ minority. In a more mixed crowd of business people at a Budget briefing in Newcastle, the balance was much the same.