As he went round the table and asked for each of his eight fellow members' votes, it must have slowly but surely dawned on Mervyn King that things were not going his way. By the time the spotlight returned to him, it will have become clear to the frustrated Governor that, whatever he did, interest rates were going to stay on hold this month.
Only one question remained: should he go with the majority, or should he follow his convictions and vote for an increase, risking causing a major market fuss when it emerged that he had been outvoted for only the second time?
In the end, yesterday's Bank of England minutes showed that he chose the latter. After the details of the vote emerged, the pound jumped by more than half a cent to $1.9929. Economists around the City predicted it was almost certain that rates would increase next month, and warned that this raised the likelihood that borrowing costs jump to 6pc.
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Thursday, 21 June 2007
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