Carney's pessimistic Brexit prophecies look like last roll of dice | Larry Elliott

Bank of England governor says we must prepare for the worst, but will anyone listen?

A bigger slump than the one that followed the financial crisis. A 25% fall in the value of the pound. An annual inflation rate of 6.6%. Official borrowing costs up to 5.5%. Our job, Mark Carney said, is not to hope for the best but to prepare for the worst.

And the governor of the Bank of England certainly laid it on. Asked by MPs on the Treasury select committee to imagine what could happen to the economy in the worst possible scenario, Carney painted a bleak picture of goods not clearing customs, the EU refusing to accept UK products and financial markets in meltdown.

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