Then, having made my annual visit to the ‘Westminster bubble’ – albeit away from Westminster – I feel an overwhelming urge to restate what I see as a universal truth.
We learnt last Thursday, though, that the decision was strikingly close – 5 votes to 3, rather than the predicted 7 to 1. External members Ian McCafferty and Michael Saunders joined Kristin Forbes, who has been backing a rate rise for several months. They were right to do so – not least as the admirable Forbes is about to leave the MPC.
The UK is heading for a downturn, believes the half-Belgian economist, as the fall in sterling after last summer’s Brexit vote pushes up inflation, so squeezing household finances. “The consumer slowdown, which initially didn’t materialize, now appears to be under way,” said Vlieghe during a speech in London, arguing rates should stay put at an ultra-low 0.25pc.
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Ahead of last June’s referendum, Bank Governor Mark Carney warned of “a technical recession” – two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP – if we voted to leave the European Union. Even in August, as the economy remained buoyant despite the Brexit result, the Bank was forecasting growth of just 0.8pc in 2017.
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Since the UK’s historic referendum in June, the widely-threatened Brexageddon hasn’t happened. On the contrary, consumer confidence has rebounded, retail sales are up and the housing market has remained firm – pleasing homeowners while further exasperating first-time buyers.
Ahead of the referendum, despite endlessly reported corporate “Brexit fears”, we now know British companies kept hiring. The UK’s employment rate reached a record 74.5pc during the three months to June, according to official data released last week. Some 31.8m people were in work – 172,000 more than the previous quarter. Unemployment fell to 4.9pc of the workforce, an 11-year low.
Almost three years on, after faster than expected growth, unemployment has fallen to 5.1pc, yet the bank rate remain at 0.5pc – where its been since being slashed in the aftermath of the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse.
Back then, Corbyn was a mere backbencher whose biggest claim to fame was his dogged record of voting against his party. Such are the vagaries of politics that, less than a year later, that same member for Islington North is odds-on to be Leader of HM Opposition after the vote of party supporters closes this Thursday.
Last Thursday, though, as the UK base rate remained at 0.5pc for the seventy-eighth successive month, speculation of a pre-year-end rate rise dissolved, as some of us predicted. Most analysts now forecast, once again, the Bank of England won’t make a move before March 2016.
That was as expected. The UK’s “bank rate” has been on hold, after all, for no less than 76 consecutive months. “A number of members”, though, are now considering an increase, the latest minutes revealed. And that was what moved the needle, with the pound up over half a cent against the euro the day the minutes were published.
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LIAM HALLIGAN 