Shadow chancellor says she’s ‘very concerned’ by fall of pound following mini-budget
The Bank of England should consider holding an “emergency meeting”, a former senior official has warned, as the pound fought back from its historic low against the dollar a day earlier.
“The key thing is, if you call it, you have to take significant action,” said the bank’s former deputy governor for monetary policy, Professor Sir Charlie Bean, adding: “The lesson is you go big and you go fast.”
The Bank of England warned on Monday that interest rates could be hiked “by as much as needed” to control inflation, as some mortgage lenders to temporarily withdrew deals for new customers and traders banked on rates hitting nearly 6 per cent next year, sparking some fears of a future housing crash.
Conservative MPs told The Independent that the “mood now is that the next general election cannot be won”, with one calling chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s turmoil-sparking decision to borrow huge sums to scrap the top rate of income tax in Friday’s mini-Budget “very strange and stupid”.
One senior Tory backbencher likened those now “running the show” to “tea party Republicans or right-wing Corbynistas”.
