King's last MPC meeting: One last turn of the tap?

Sir Mervyn King chairs his last ever MPC meeting today, but will his parting gift be one last blast of the QE tap?

The outgoing Governor, to be replaced by Canadian Mark Carney on 1 July after two decades at the Bank of England, has been calling for an extension to the central bank’s quantitative easing programme. This programme has seen the Bank buy £375bn of government bonds between March 2009 and October 2012. King and two other MPC members want to extend the Bank’s asset purchase programme by an extra £25bn, to stimulate the economy. In the minutes of February's MPC meeting, it was revealed King and MPC member Paul Fisher had voted in favour of boosting QE to £400bn, joining lone voice David M...