Credit Crunch

Bank of England deputy governor falls on his sword

The Bank of England's deputy governor for financial stability has resigned. Sir John Gieve had come under increasing pressure as scrutiny of his role during the credit crisis and the collapse of Northern Rock intensified.

Inside Credit Crunch

Bank's letter to Chancellor reveals fears of inflation rate rising above 4 per cent

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Inflation is likely to rise sharply this year to above 4 per cent, the Bank of England has warned. Last month, it rose to 3.3 per cent, from 3 per cent in April. Inflation is at its highest since July 1992, and some way off the Government's target of 2 per cent.

Hamish McRae: The good news is the downturn won't be too deep – but the bad news is it will last longer

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

No, it is not the early 1990s, quite. But there are sufficiently uncomfortable similarities for that to be the best frame of reference for what is happening to inflation and the economy, and, more helpfully, the best indicator of how things are likely to unfold over the next three to four years.

Leading article: The dragon of inflation breathes fire again

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

The tale the Chancellor will have to tell in his Mansion House speech this evening will be far from the triumphal story that delighted City audiences in the years of plenty. Where Gordon Brown boasted of economic dynamism that combined high growth with low inflation, Alistair Darling has to confront an immediate future where both indicators are moving the wrong way. How long is a year in fiscal politics?

How team Darling must up its game

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

The Treasury was once regarded as the Rolls-Royce of government departments, a machine that runs so smoothly that the only sound you'll ever hear is the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece in the elegant quietude of the permanent secretary's office. Not so today. Now the department resembles nothing so much as a car crash: the monetary, fiscal and social policy objectives it set itself lying mangled and twisted by the side of the road, the driver asleep at the wheel.

Sean O'Grady: Now Brown must tell us how he can defeat stagflation

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Rule by rule, target by target, pledge by pledge: they're falling like ninepins. Yesterday's open letter from the Governor of the Bank of England to the Chancellor confirmed that the Government's target for inflation to be 2 per cent "at all times" – the jewel in the crown of its economic strategy – is now a glorious irrelevance.

MPs may rebel over block on pay rise

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

MPs are threatening to stage a revolt over being held to a pay rise of about 2 per cent, taking their income to £63,000 a year.

Inflation to pass 4%, Governor warns

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Households were tonight warned that soaring food prices and energy bills could push the annual rate of inflation to more than 4 per cent by later this year.

Inflation: what happens now

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Today's letter exchange between Bank of England Governor Mervyn King and Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to mark the start of an extended correspondence as the cost of living surges.

Salaries in the City hit by credit crunch

Thursday, 12 June 2008

Gone, for now, are bankers' days of conspicuous excess, those golden lunchtimes of lore when traders at Barclays Capital spent £44,000 on wine alone during a meal at Gordon Ramsay's Petrus restaurant, and bottles of vintage bubbly were sprayed around City bars in the manner of Formula 1 drivers on top of the winners' podium.

'Innocent' will lose homes, King warns

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave a stark warning yesterday that the financial excesses of recent years will lead to misery for homeowners.

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