The Festival of Words: From Gyles Brandreth to Anthony Scaramucci – all you need to know about the Fleet Street Quarter festival
Gilt rout sparks calls for Bank of England to slow ‘unusual’ bond sale programme Economics The Bank of England should slow the pace of its costly approach to unwinding quantitative easing, which is pushing up government borrowing costs and weakening the public finances at a time when both are under significant pressure, several top economists have said. The calls follow the UK’s sovereign debt being swept up in a dramatic [...]
Britain is still paying a heavy price for Covid lockdowns Opinion Six years on from the first lockdown, Britain hasn’t returned to its pre-Covid path – instead becoming a high-tax, low-growth less free nation, says Alex Pugh A little over six years ago, 27m people watched UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tell them to “stay home” to tackle the spread of coronavirus. Johnson said you should [...]
Bank of England took ‘eye off ball on inflation’, says Jenrick Economics Robert Jenrick is set to make his first major pitch to the City, in his first major outing as Reform’s spokesman on Treasury matters. The Newark MP is expected to commit to the independence of the Bank of England but pledge to “strip the Bank of distractions which have been loaded onto it”. “We will [...]
Bank of England’s Pill: We should not have slowed QT bond sales September 23, 2025 The Bank of England’s chief economist has hit out at colleagues’ recent decision to slow sales of the central bank’s government debt stockpile, warning it risked papering over underlying drivers of spiking government borrowing costs and causing a “more painful” crisis in the future. In a speech delivered in Geneva, Huw Pill told delegates that [...]
Bank of England likely to slow down QT programme, Investec economist says September 15, 2025 The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is likely to slow down its quantitative tightening (QT) programme over the next year, an Investec economist has said, as Britain’s central bank looks to quell concerns over rising gilt yields. “We doubt that the MPC will maintain the same pace of balance sheet reduction next year [...]
Bank of England ‘under pressure’ to slow bond sales amid market tumult September 5, 2025 The Bank of England should slow its quantitative tightening programme and stop active sales of long-dated bonds entirely in the wake of this week’s bond rout that saw the cost of long-term borrowing soar to its highest level this century, a group of top economists has said. Markets were rocked by a global sell-off in [...]
Could the Bank of England push the UK into recession? January 23, 2025 As the Bank of England scrambles to unwind the disastrous effects of quantitative easing, the hidden costs of this policy are becoming clear, says Damian Pudner Quantitative easing (QE) has long been the Bank of England’s monetary policy nuclear option. Launched in 2009 to save a collapsing financial system, it was supercharged during the pandemic, [...]
Give parliament a vote on quantitative easing January 9, 2025 QE should not be the preserve of bean-counting central bankers – money printing is not an abstract issue, it has real consequences for people’s ordinary lives, says Sam Bidwell If one thing characterises British politics in the post-Thatcher era, it is a serial addiction to avoiding questions about the structure of our economy. On the [...]
Treasury’s QE bill might reach £95bn, Bank of England estimates show August 6, 2024 The latest estimate, released today by the Bank of England in a quarterly update, is a slight increase on the Bank’s previous upper estimate of £85bn.
Bank of England should become more like the Fed to stem bond losses, Barclays says July 2, 2024 The Treasury is having to shoulder heavy losses from QE, which is attracting a lot of political attention given the parlous state of the public finances.