Mark Carney’s gospel: give us an interest rate rise, Lord – but not yet

Is there anything more predictable than a Mark Carney press conference? The poor sod in Groundhog Day got to enjoy more variety and suspense. Explaining why, yet again, the Bank of England had decided not to raise interest rates, Governor Carney told us that rates could rise ‘faster than markets expect’. That wouldn’t be all that hard, given that markets have pretty well given up on Carney ever shifting rates. Maybe they believed him the first time, in June 2014, when he said that a rate rise could come ‘sooner than markets expect’. Maybe they were still inclined to take a little bit of notice in July 2015 when he told us that he expected rates to rise over the next three years to reach around 2 per cent. But now Carney has become a bit of a yawn. The markets have gone to sleep. The FTSE flatlined throughout Carney’s press conference and interview on the World at One.