Bank of England governor hits out at populism as Trump interferes in US Fed
The governor of the Bank of England has urged the world’s leading global institutions to fight back against the rise of populism, warning that it represents one of the biggest threats to improvements in living standards.In a thinly veiled response to Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the independence of the US Federal Reserve, Andrew Bailey said that he and the heads of other institutions had a duty to “challenge back” populist narratives.“Part of the purpose of international agencies is that from time to time they have to tell us what we don’t want to hear, let alone act upon,” he said.“Of course, they have to be accountable for the accuracy and quality of the assessment.But, accepting that, we have to call out messenger shooting.
”Bailey was among a group of 10 central bank governors – including the chair of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde – who this week offered “full solidarity” to the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, after he revealed he had been threatened with legal action,His comments also come amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing criticism of Trump after the US intervention in Venezuela and the president’s threats to take control of Greenland,In a speech delivered as world leaders prepare to head to Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos – widely seen as a critical moment for the future of international cooperation – the governor said countries turning inwards would undermine progress to raise living standards,“The rise of so-called populism makes the whole task harder,” he said,Economists and the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, have warned that politically driven attempts to influence the Fed and other leading central banks could ultimately push up inflation and interest rates, adding to cost of living pressures on households.
Bailey identified three defining features of populism: a tendency towards domestic production over international openness; attributing unfavourable conditions to “outside forces”; and fuelling decline in trust in domestic and international institutions.He said this included a populist tendency to deride domestic and international institutions as “distant, unresponsive and acting for the benefit of powerful and uncontrollable interests”.“For those of us who are institutionalised, the answer is that we have to challenge back, in deeds more than just words.But, we have to ensure our houses are in order too,” he said.The governor has previously faced criticism from Nigel Farage, the leader of the rightwing populist Reform UK party.
Farage has called for politicians to have greater influence on the Bank of England, which was made independent in 1997 by the then Labour chancellor, Gordon Brown,Late last year, Farage suggested he could replace Bailey as governor if he became prime minister,He has also called Bailey a “dinosaur” over his views on digital currencies,Liz Truss, the former prime minister, has also complained about UK institutions including the Bank, Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility, accusing them of being part of a shadowy “deep state” apparatus,Bailey said the gains of global cooperation were clear.
“The benefits of trade and openness in terms of specialisation and larger markets are very well known,So, too, is the need to have rules of the game and some form of commitment and coordination device to put these rules into effect and protect legitimate national interests,” he said,Economists typically view free trade as a cornerstone of long-term economic growth, arguing that it helps lower prices for consumers and supports productivity gains,However, the governor of the UK central bank, who also chairs the international Financial Stability Board – acknowledged that years of lacklustre economic growth and stalling progress living standards had made promoting global openness harder,“While it is true that openness supports growth and has reduced global poverty, it can have, and has had, distributional consequences in economies, and there has been an undermining of social capital so-called and domestic cohesion,” Bailey said.
He added that the challenges facing the world could not be overcome through increasingly isolationist policies.Bailey said there were four substantial headwinds facing rich countries: a pause between productivity-enhancing technologies that was holding back economic growth; ageing populations; rising demands for defence spending; and the climate crisis.While describing these pressures as a “powerful force to complicate the operation of the international system”, he argued that countries could overcome them through “robust economic openness” and greater global trade and cooperation.“We must be clear and agreed that a world without effective institutions is unlikely to be stable,” he added.
Ex-councillor jailed for stalking former Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt
A former councillor has been jailed for 20 weeks after stalking Penny Mordaunt, which the former cabinet minister said left her fearing “sexual violence”.Edward Brandt, a professional sailor, had been found guilty of the offence but was acquitted of a more serious charge of stalking involving serious alarm or distress.The trial was told he sent at least 17 emails and three phone messages to Mordaunt, as well as turning up at her Portsmouth constituency office out-of-hours between 11 September 2023 and 12 May 2024.She said in a statement to police that she “feared sexual violence” because of the defendant’s “creepy” behaviour.Brandt, 61, was also sentenced for seven breaches in December last year of a stalking protection order, in place until November 2034, by failing to notify police of devices capable of connecting to the internet and of the creation of accounts on Facebook and Snapchat
A linguistic own goal from Starmer’s critics | Letters
Jonathan Liew links rude football chants to the unmerited personal abuse which Keir Starmer is currently receiving (When crowds direct offensive chants at Keir Starmer, who’s to blame? I’m afraid he is, 13 January).Football managers are frequently the target for similar treatment. Like them, Starmer has to set his team’s strategy and tactics and produce results that please supporters.No matter that he saved his side from relegation and gained promotion last season, things are not going as well as expected – hence the abuse. In style and charisma, he may be more Sean Dyche than Carlo Ancelotti, and as an Arsenal fan, he should get some tips from Mikel Arteta
Reform UK’s London mayor candidate condemned for burqa stop and search remarks
Reform UK’s mayoral candidate for London has been accused of endangering Muslims after she said women wearing the burqa should be subject to stop and search.Laila Cunningham, who was announced as Reform’s candidate for the 2028 mayoral elections last week, said no one should cover their face “in an open society”, adding: “It has to be assumed that if you’re hiding your face, you’re hiding it for a criminal reason.”Cunningham told the Standard podcast: “If you go to parts of London, it does feel like a Muslim city. The signs are written in a different language. You’ve got burqas being sold in markets
Jenrick says he hopes his defection to Reform UK will ‘unite the right’ after Badenoch says he ‘tells a lot of lies’ – as it happened
Robert Jenrick is now speaking exclusively to Laura Kuenssberg at BBC News and says he hopes his defection will “unite the right”.He said:This is uniting the right. My message for millions of people in the country who stuck with the Conservative party, often through gritted teeth because like me they were deeply frustrated, angry even, about what happened.They voted again in 2024 and many of those voters have now come to Reform over the course of the last year or so – but there are still people sticking with the party.If you want to get rid of this Labour government and have a strong reforming government to fix the country, there is frankly only one way to do that … that is to vote for Nigel and rally behind him and Reform
Tory ‘arsonists’ still in charge of party, says Jenrick as he hits back at Badenoch
The “arsonists” who tanked the reputation of the Conservatives are still in charge of the party, Robert Jenrick has said as he and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, trade blows a day after his dramatic defection to Reform UK.Giving his first interview since his announcement on Thursday, the former shadow justice secretary said the Conservatives had not changed since the election, while defending himself against allegations of lying from his former party leader.He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Friday: “I came to the conclusion over the course of the last year or so that … the party hadn’t changed, that the people who’d made those mistakes were still sat around the shadow cabinet table, the arsonists were still in control of the party, and that this was not a party that was capable of even understanding what it had got wrong, let alone fixing it.”Jenrick insisted “I could not have been franker” about his intentions, despite telling the Conservative chief whip on Thursday he would never defect – an act that Badenoch said showed he “tells a lot of lies”.In her own set of broadcast interviews hours earlier, Badenoch said: “You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth
Nigel Farage tricked into paying tribute to Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins
Nigel Farage has been targeted with another prank on the paid video service Cameo, this time paying tribute to the child sexual abuse offender Ian Watkins.Cameo allows fans to pay celebrities to make personalised video messages, with the Reform party leader offering his services from £78.45.In a 27-second video posted online by John Smith, who requested the clip, Farage called the former Lostprophets singer, who was killed in prison last year, “a good man, a really good guy” who “loved his children”.He pretended to know Watkins, whose victims included a baby boy, and said he was “very much in contact with me”
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