Blanchflower: I wanted to stop crisis
Thursday 27th November 2008, 3:35PM GMT.
The Bank of England should have acted earlier to cut interest rates, monetary policy committee (MPC) member David Blanchflower said today.
In an interview with the Guardian, the economist who continually called for interest rate cuts explained he wanted to prevent the crisis the UK now faces.
“This is not something I wanted to get right,” he said.
“I warned that this was going to happen unless we acted – I wanted to prevent the crisis,” Mr Blanchflower said.
“I’m not saying everything would have been wonderful, but at least if we’d acted earlier we would be ahead of events and not reacting to them.”
Since October 2007, Mr Blanchflower has voted for interest rate cuts every month – but MPC voted to keep rates on hold as inflation was high and that was seen at the time as a greater threat to the economy.
Earlier this month the Bank of England cut interest rates by 1.5 per cent – catching many off guard – and a further cut is expected next week.
“We are now doing the things we should be doing. All hands are to the pump and I get the sense that people have absolutely got it,” Mr Blanchflower told the Guardian.
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