Securing energy supplies will also boost the pound

'This calamity is largely the fault of the Bank of England'

- Tim Newark

YET AGAIN, the Bank of England is acting too slowly. With the pound at new lows, Governor Andrew Bailey Bailey says he until will wait November to announce new measures, but that leaves weeks of turmoil to come.

A panicked response is never good, but the Bank has been underperforming for the past year at least, exacerbating our economic problems.

Slow to anticipate the inflation caused by post-pandemic demand, Mr. Bailey's team of so-called experts have been way behind the curve, keeping interest rates too low for too long.

Even last week, they managed to disappoint market expectations by raising rates not by a predicted 0.75 percentage points, but by just 0.5 per cent, thus doing little to bolster the pound against the dollar.

The US Federal Reserve, by contrast, has been more robust, opting for a 0.75 percentage point hike in its battle against inflation and being rewarded with a higher value dollar.

If Mr Bailey is to get on top of the sterling's decline, he needs to act even more decisively, with predictions of interest rates rising to 6 per cent next year. This will bring bitter pain to mortgage-holders, who face paying hundreds of pounds more every month to keep their homes.