No one liked Mervyn King – but history could yet be on his side

Sir Mervyn King was his own man to the end: professorial, downbeat, against the tide. At last week’s Mansion House dinner — as in his final vote in favour of more QE, on which his Monetary Policy Committee colleagues bade him farewell by defeating him six to three — he was still worrying about a potential reversal of the fragile recovery. Even as he packs his collection of Aston Villa programmes and MPC minutes into plastic crates, the prospect of collateral damage from another euro-storm will be furrowing his brow.

So his last speech as Governor was short on jokes and long on warnings: about ‘unfinished business’ and lessons unlearned, about ‘the audacity of pessimism’ as an antidote to complacency. The ovation that followed (to answer my own question a fortnight ago as to how fulsome it would be) was no more than polite: as he ended with the traditional toast to the Lord Mayor, the assembly shuffled to its feet — but sat down again, a little awkwardly, within half a minute.