Following its latest quarterly gathering on 19th October, the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee (SMPC) voted by five votes to four to leave Bank Rate unchanged at 0.5% when the Bank of England’s rate setters assemble on Thursday 4th November. Three of the dissenting SMPC members voted that Bank Rate should be raised to 1%, while one voted for a 100 basis points increase to 1.5%. The majority on the SMPC who wished to hold Bank Rate did so for a variety of reasons. These included the slow growth of broad money and credit and concern that the fiscal tightening in the Comprehensive Spending Review would reduce activity. There was also a worry that the international recovery was running out of steam in the mature industri
