I awoke yesterday to the R4 Today programme reporting I had called for the Bank to cut its interest rate. I had done no such thing. It is all there for them to read on my website if they now wish to report my views. There is a short form on twitter if they want the headlines. Why do they not read or check before reporting?

The BBC has singularly  failed  to hold the Bank of England to account. It has lamely repeated the nonsense that our inflation could not be foreseen and arose from the war in Ukraine. They ignored the difficult questions  I put – Why was UK inflation three times target before the invasion? Why did inflation in Switzerland, Japan and China stay down if global energy prices were to blame?   They failed to report my study of five Central banks showing how the Central banks  that avoided extra bond buying and money creation did better on inflation.

The Bank of England is independent when it comes to setting the base rate. I have avoided calling for changes. It is not independent on bond sales and purchases, where I have been critical and called for fewer bond purchases and now for no more sales in the market.

I have  called for greater diversity of thought on the MPC with a new approach to recruitment and remuneration. I have also campaigned to get the Bank to amend its models as its inflation  forecasting has been so poor. If the Bank cannot forecast inflation reasonably accurately it has no basis for fixing money policy sensibly.

The BBC will doubtless continue to ignore all this whilst it busily makes up an alternative reality it prefers.

On the twelfth day of Christmas  my true love said to me

Twelve ferries cancelled

Eleven lanes a closed

Ten restriction signs

Nine diggers digging

Eight potholes threatening

Seven bollards blocking

Six cameras flashing

Five closed roads

Four different routes

Three speeding limits

Two red lights

and traffic jams on the motorway

Inflation has fallen a long way and the economy has stalled. That is what you should expect given the intense monetary squeeze administered by the Bank, and the efforts at fiscal tightening by the Treasury.

There hasn’t been a worse collapse in output and jobs because the tax rises and fiscal tightening  started from a loose heavy borrowing position. Many better paid people have extra savings from covid period earnings when their spending was cut by lockdowns. Savers have some increased  interest returns. The public sector has continued to expand job numbers and offer substantial wage increases to settle strikes .

The US economy has also seen a big fall inflation  from tight money  policy. It has had high growth this year from savings overhangs and from a large fiscal boost, with an extra $1trillion of state borrowing.

The UK needs to relax the monetary squeeze a bit. The Bank has had a very bad run of wrong  forecasts and damaging policies, lurching from too easy to too tough. It should stop the sales of bonds in the market  at big losses, which add to  the  shortage of money . The Chancellor is in joint control of  this policy  and pays for all the losses, so he should sort it out with the Governor now.

The Chancellor should use the coming big fall in debt interest costs given the way they calculate and report them from falling inflation. This reduces the costs of indexed bonds considerably. He should announce a growth strategy with cuts to IR35, increases in the VAT business  threshold and reductions in energy taxes at its heart. Cutting energy taxes would also cut inflation  more, reducing spending pressures further. Lower energy taxes could  save more of our industry and reduce imports.

He should impose an immediate freeze on external recruitment by the civil service and other public administration.

I wish you all a happy Christmas.

Feel free to comment on anything you like today. I will catch up tomorrow.