The Spectator’s notes | 10 March 2016

Surely there is a difference between Mark Carney’s intervention in the Scottish referendum last year and in the EU one now. In the first, everyone wanted to know whether an independent Scotland could, as Alex Salmond asserted, keep the pound and even gain partial control over it. The best person to answer this question was the Governor of the Bank of England. So he answered it, and the answer — though somewhat more obliquely expressed — was no. For the vote on 23 June, there is nothing that Mr Carney can tell us which we definitely need to know and which only he can say. So when he spoke to the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons on Tuesday, his opinion was no better than that of any intelligent and well-connected person who deals with money. In one respect, it was much worse. Unless the Governor must say something before a vote, there is a strong presumption that he should say nothing, since his remarks can compromise his hard-won independence.