|
|
Dear John,
Yesterday morning, Positive Money launched a groundbreaking new report in parliament: “Seeking Legitimacy: a new settlement for the Bank of England.” [1]
It’s crystal clear that our central bank is a crucial part of the crisis of democracy that’s sweeping through our public bodies. In the last ten years, its policies have made inequality and the housing crisis worse, and done little more than put a plaster over a broken financial system. [2]
The way it operates needs a radical rethink. So yesterday alongside a cross-party panel of MPs including Clive Lewis, Vince Cable and Ian Blackford, we asked: who’s the Bank really accountable to? What’s its relationship with the public? With the Government? And we laid out our key ideas to reform it.
This 1-minute video gives the headlines and invites you to share it. If more people knew that a reformed Bank of England could really help reduce inequality, tackle the housing crisis and shift to a green economy, we could move much closer to making it a reality.
Please will you watch the video then share it with a few friends today? There’s the option to share it on Facebook or Twitter and it will take you less than 2 minutes: |
|
|
|
|
These are three of the reforms we suggest in the report:
> We need a Citizens’ Panel of people from all around the country, to feed into the meetings between MPs, the Government and the Bank.
> We need a new policy unit of staff from the Bank and different government departments, so the Bank can better support our whole economy.
> The Bank needs to transparently collaborate and communicate more with the Treasury. |
|
|
|
|
At the launch event, Clive Lewis MP said making the Bank of England as accountable as possible “is the right way forward” and that our report “goes some way to achieving that.” |
|
|
Lord Skidelsky was concerned about the “huge transfer of power from politicians to technicians,'' referring to the increased role of unelected central bank officials in determining the course of our economy.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford strongly criticised the Bank’s quantitative easing (QE) policy, saying “we’ve rewarded those who caused the financial crash.” |
|
Ian spoke about his frustration in trying to provide scrutiny over the Bank’s work, saying that the QE debate he secured in Parliament “was one of the most depressing experiences I’ve ever had,” as government ministers seemed poorly informed on the bank’s operations. He said: “I really do welcome the report, it’s an important contribution to the debate.”
The Telegraph, City AM, Bloomberg and Reuters were amongst the news outlets that covered the report: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
In these times, it’s easy to feel concerned about the state of our democracy. But our event yesterday provided a few hours of hope - there are politicians and citizens with the ideas and desire to change things for the better. And the media coverage means we’ve pushed this issue up the public agenda.
Together we can boost it even further up the agenda. Please will you share the video about the urgent need for reform at the heart of our system now?
|
|
Thank you for all you do,
Rachel, David, Fran and the rest of the Positive Money team
Notes: [1] New Positive Money report ‘Seeking Legitimacy’ launched in parliament: Seeking Legitimacy: A new settlement for the Bank of England Report: https://positivemoney.org/seekinglegitimacy/ [2] Latest wealth data shows disproportionate gains to the rich during era of QE: https://positivemoney.org/2018/02/latest-wealth-data-shows-disproportionate-gains-rich-era-qe/ Bank of England finally admits high house prices are determined by finance, not supply and demand: https://positivemoney.org/2019/09/bank-of-england-confirms-positive-money-analysis-of-house-prices/ |
|
Positive Money relies on donations from generous individuals like you to carry out our research, education work and campaign for a fairer money and banking system. |
|
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA |
|
