The Bank of England has resisted the temptation to follow the Fed and other global central banks into a more aggressive phase of tightening. Instead the Bank has opted for a fourth consecutive 25bp hike which takes Bank rate up to 1.25%. In fact, despite speculation after Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting, the vote split was exactly the same as in May, with three out of nine committee members preferring a more aggressive 50bp increase. But while the hawks failed to win over the rest of the committee, they have succeeded in securing a noticeably more hawkish policy statement. It speaks of UK core inflation being ... (full story)