IT was intriguing to note the speech by Mark Carney, Governor of the “independent” Bank of England, on the issue of the UK’s membership of the European Union (“Osborne defends Carney over EU comments”, The Herald, October 23).
Lord Lawson, who heads the Conservatives for Britain Group, which is campaigning for the UK’s exit from the EU, accused the Governor of “wading into a political debate”.
Mr Carney’s comments on the UK and the EU were however a lot less forthright than those he made in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum, when he questioned the compatibility of a currency union with sovereignty. The tamer approach taken by Mr Carney on the EU issue is clearly intriguing, as the impact of a UK withdrawal from the EU would be more hard-felt in the UK than Scottish independence.
It is also rather strange that Lord Lawson is critical of Mr Carney’s “political” intervention in the EU debate but did not raise his concerns over the intervention of Mr Carney in the Scottish independence referendum.
This latest intervention by Mr Carney raises the issue of the remit of the Bank of England, which is “to maintain price stability" and "support the economic policy of (the government), including its objectives for growth and employment".
Leading on from this there clearly needs to be a broader debate about the “true” independence of the Bank of England and whether it is breaching its remit on entering into political debates such as these.
Alex Orr,
Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel