Reform’s plan to overhaul the Bank of England will leave markets more exposed to financial shocks, a senior official at the central bank has suggested.
Victoria Saporta, a director at the Bank, signalled that the party’s scheme to stop the Bank paying interest on money held there by commercial banks could return Britain to a world of “significant” volatility in financial markets.
After all, who would want to be caught supoporting an economic idea Spud approves of?
No, not a good idea at all.
Stopped clock moment?
Reform are not the answer. At a push they might be useful to kill of The Tories and Labour, but nothing more.
I’m not sure anything is the answer. How do you go about dismantling the kind of state and society we have now? There are too many rentiers, parasites and hangers-on. You can’t just shoot them, or fire them; always the mistake business types make when they enter politics.
Historically, collapse and being overrun by barbarians seems to be the way. Well, the barbarians are certainly overrunning us.
Ah, so something that was only started in 2006 is now set in stone for ever is it? Were the 80s and 90s a wasteland of zero economic growth brought about by the failure of the BoE to pay interest in bank’s reserve deposits?
If you look at economic growth prior to 2006 and compare with that since its like chalk and cheese. And not favourable to the current BoE policy. Ergo facts suggest that we should go back to the old policy. Perhaps its actually better for the economy for the BoE NOT to have such an iron control over interest rates. Maybe the market is better at setting the right rate for economic conditions than the BoE is. After all the BoE is just a bunch of economists (and wannabee economists) playing politics with plausible deniability. After all why else would one of the ‘public servant’ directors of the BoE be attacking the policy of a political party if they aren’t indulging in party politics? Have they attacked any of Labour’s policies at all? Like completely f*cking up the economy with tax and spending rises? Of course not, they agree with all that sh*t.
Raze the BoE to the ground and let the market set interest rates.
Jim, every word true. BoE independence is all based on the fiction that technocrats are competent, impartial, apolitical, and are the public interest incarnate, not simply responding to incentives and maximising their own and their caste’s interests. Anyone who has read Sowell will agree.
Why even have commie style price setting of Sterling?
Norman
…the barbarians are certainly overrunning us.
Barbarians have been in the corridors of power for decades…
It’s the BoE and the treasury which deserve the credit for the state of the economy. They are the constant factor whereas dumb pols come and go and corroborate their actions. The treasury and the bank are always with you.
“How do you go about dismantling the kind of state and society we have now?”
Either over the course of decades, during which goal posts have changed…
Or….
The rather quick and brutal version, caused by XXXX…
There’s no one answer, but those, at least looking at history, are the two options.
“Ms Saporta added that paying interest on money parked at the Bank underpinned its ability to influence the economy by controlling borrowing costs. Mr Bailey has previously said that stopping interest payments on reserves would undermine this power.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/11/reform-plans-risk-destabilising-markets-bank-of-england/
Now, I read that and thought: “Isn’t that what we want? To curtail the powers of some central committee which believes it can ever know enough to be able to direct the economy better than the market could?”
Maybe there is some technical or philosophical reason why our host doesn’t like this idea. perhaps owing to discomfort about the central bank having the power to compel commercial lenders to deposit money with it without the need to pay them for it? Just guessing here. But on the face of it this looks like a step in the right direction.
Everything I think I know about economics I learned here.
If it makes sense to pay interest on such deposits, and it makes sense to deposit your money this way, isn’t there a market for someone to do that? If not, it isn’t worth doing.
As I learned here.
Barbarians have been in the corridors of power for decades…
According to Guido civil servants in the FO were trying to dictate govt policy on Israel and were told if you don’t like it you can leave. Yet another legacy of 14 years of weak Conservative governments, a civil service that thinks it can ignore govt policy cf Rwanda
In the unlikely event of a Reform govt at the next GE the 1st point on Farage’s agenda will need to be a “come to Jesus” meeting with civil service heads. Every cabinet minister should have a similar meeting with their department civil servants as soon as they are appointed.
Plenty of time for this to mature, spoil and be discarded as a thought, not an action.