Fears of a ‘car-crash Brexit’ make life difficult for Mark Carney

The Bank of England governor's slow and steady approach failed to stop the pound falling further against the dollar

There may be times when Mark Carney regrets extending his stint at the Bank of England by an extra year. Had things gone as originally planned, Carney would have handed over the keys to Threadneedle Street a month ago and someone else would have had the task of steering the economy through what is certain to be a fiendishly tricky period.

That would be the case even without Brexit. The UK economy has recovered more slowly and more unevenly than Carney envisaged when he took over at the Bank from Mervyn King in 2013. It was only last week that the Bank's monetary policy committee felt confident enough to raise interest rates above the 0.5% emergency level that they reached in March 2009.

There was a time when plain speaking from the Bank of England would have raised eyebrows in Downing Street

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