I'm much more worried about King's economic forecasts
But there is nothing exceptional about an established governor like Mervyn King worrying in private about the inexperience of the leading figures in a likely incoming government. I'm much more worried about the economic forecasts he gave the Americans, in which he seems to have been consistently wrong.
He told the US Ambassador, for example, that global recovery would be "anaemic" in 2010. Wrong. It has been, according to the IMF, a robust 5%.
He warned there was a high risk of a double dip recession. Wrong. Even Labour doesn't claim that any more -- just that growth will be a little lower in 2011 and 2012 than it would have been without the cuts.
He also predicted that the private sector would not pick up the public sector slack when it came to jobs, claiming "businesses will cut jobs faster this year", including the elimination of part-time jobs. Double wrong. The private sector has created around 300,000 new jobs this year -- far more than the public sector loss of jobs -- and about 50% of them have been part-time.
Remember, these mis-forecasts come from a governor who has already a dubious record in predicting inflation, consistently telling us that inflation figures at least 50% higher than the 2% target he is meant to hit were just a blip -- except that this blip is now almost three years old and in his latest forecast he's been forced to concede that the "blip" is likely to last all of 2011 too.
The US embassy clearly placed great store on the governor's forecasts, judging by the diplomatic traffic they generated back to Washington. Since nothing he seems to have told them turned out to be right, I'm not sure how soon the Americans will be picking up the tab for lunch with Mr King in 2011.
PS Just before I began my interview with John Prescott last week, he brandished a letter from a senior Japanese official which he said showed that Tokyo was backing him to bring a new agreement on global warming. His lordship then departed for Cancun, where agreement on anything binding looks elusive, to say the least. Indeed, the Japanese have just announced that they will not continue with the Kyoto protocols beyond 2012.
Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, has told reporters in Cancun that Tokyo would "sternly oppose debate for extending the Kyoto Protocol into a second phase which is unfair and ineffective." Given that Kyoto was signed in Japan and that John Prescott regards it as something he saved at the last minute, you might regard this as a double blow. Tune in towards the end of the week when we'll try to establish exactly what Cancun has achieved. Meanwhile wrap and stay warm -- another Big Freeze is on its way.
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