The King speech

Today is the last inflation report for Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England. He has served the bank for many years and has been the key figure at the bank for the past eight years.

King’s abdication (retirement) is a time to reflect on his achievements at the top. A keen football fan who happily uses soccer analogies, King would probably recognise his time as Governor has been a game of two halves.

The first half was great, with no apparent need to interfere with a perfectly balanced, strong growth, low inflation economy. The second half involved a great deal of stress and the need for intervention as the economy was weak, the inflation target was constantly missed, and he faced the financial equivalent of Chernobyl, as the banking sector began to meltdown.

King is not only a football fan but is also a regular sight at Wimbledon. Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ is the guide to how players should play on its perfect English grass courts. It is fair to say that King has appropriately treated success and failure in the same way.  I would argue that his failures were in the first half of his term and his strength and ability shone through in the second half of his term. Although his critics may say that the seeds of the financial crisis were sown under his watch.

I think the seeds of the UK financial crisis were as follows:

Inappropriately low interest rates in the USA following the tragic events of September the 11th.

The removal of bank supervision from the Bank of England by Gordon Brown.

The need to hit a rigid inflation target when the world was enjoying low inflation because of world trade and productivity growth meant the use of over stimulative policy, causing a boom to keep inflation on target.

The euro creation resulted in an unstable financial system in Europe.

The first three of these have been resolved with the passage of time, a change in UK banking regulation back to the old ways, and a move around the world to more flexible inflation targeting. The last – the issue of banking in the eurozone – remains unresolved, but there are strong signs that potentially successful attempts are underway to solve the dichotomy of banking support from sovereign states within the eurozone.

We are avid watches of the inflation reports, and will be watching it today. The journalists get to ask questions. If I was there these are the three I would like to ask:

1. What do you think of the euro as an economic concept?

2. How close were we to financial Armageddon?

3. How does QE work?!

Sadly I think Mervyn will be as discreet as always in the press conference. Let’s hope that when he is allowed to speak freely, we get to see a little less candour and more transparency and insight into what has been an exciting time to be at the bank.

I think history will show that Mervyn King did a good job in handling the crisis. After all, that’s what central banks were created to do as lenders of last resort. From an economist’s point of view, what does his leadership prove? Well, Goodhart’s law was again proving itself to be correct. You aim to be a boring central banker and look what happens!