Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.5% until after general election

Not since Clement Attlee's Labour government was elected following the second world war have rates remained unchanged for the duration of a parliament

Britain will go a whole parliament without an increase in interest rates for the first time since the immediate aftermath of the second world war, after the Bank of England left official borrowing costs on hold.

Threadneedle Street said it had left the bank rate unchanged at 0.5% following the meeting of its nine-strong monetary policy committee, extending a run that began more than six years ago when Gordon Brown was prime minister and Alistair Darling chancellor.

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