It’s time to clear out the Bank of England’s board

Liz Truss says she intends to review the Bank of England’s mandate, which has been fixed as a 2 per cent inflation target since Gordon Brown gave the Bank its independence in 1997. We’re told Governor Andrew Bailey, keen to keep his job, thinks a review is ‘probably the right thing’. But is it? A return to the long-term inflationary average of 2 per cent is highly desirable as soon as global price spikes subside – but if the odds-on next PM thinks the Bank incapable of achieving it, setting more dynamic inflation-and-growth objectives would surely be an overreach.

Instead, maybe she should take her axe to the organisation, starting with the Bank’s board of directors, known as the Court. I have a fine photograph of the Court in the days when my father (veteran banker and deputy chairman of BT) was among a dozen corporate chiefs – the likes of Lord Nelson of GEC, Sir Hector Laing of United Biscuits and Sir John Baring of Barings – around the antique table.