The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meet on the 1st Thursday of each month to discuss the ‘base rate’ which has been set at 0.5% for a long time.

The meeting is to discuss whether to change the base rate, and by how much, with a view to controlling inflation – inflation is bad if it is too high or too low.

Anyway, the minutes of the last meeting have been released today and they show that 2 members of the 9 person committee voted for a rate rise in January. One member asked for the opposite – another £50bn of  QE and the others all voted for a hold on rates and no extra QE.

This matches the expectations expressed by journalists over the Christmas period that rates were nearing the time when they would rise.

However, this week’s GDP figures may reduce the pressure on the B of E to raise rates and I see that Capital Economics are even suggesting that rates could be increased, with a view that they may have to go back down if the economy turns out to be weaker than expected.

I’m not so sure about that, the Bank of England would see that as ‘weak and uncertain’ and they want to be perceived as ‘strong and reliable’  so they tend to move in one direction at a time . While we are in ‘unusual times’ I suspect that if rates went up a notch, they’d stay up. Mind you, it’s a free vote and the majority wins the day so it could happen.

Myself?  I think there’s too much uncertainty around at the moment, I doubt rates will change in February or even March now,  but the minutes of those two meetings will make interesting reading. Although by ‘interesting’, I admit don’t mean it in the normal sense of the word…