A previous Chancellor
INFLATION KEEPS hitting the target set for it by the previous Chancellor, so the Bank of England wonders why the markets have so blatantly lost faith. Something to do with credibility, it thinks. The clue is there in its own Bulletin, which features a promising new contributor called Nigel Lawson: 'There is nothing intrinsically wrong with targeting inflation directly' (he says) provided it is not seen as any kind of auto- pilot. Inflation as defined for these purposes remained within the authorities' current range of 1 to 4 per cent throughout the two years from March 1986 to March 1988 when, as we now know, the pressure of demand was growing considerably more strongly than was apparent at the time.' Well, now, and what the blip happened next, Nigel?
Previous page
