The Bank: Inside the Bank of England - Hardcover

Dan Conaghan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1849542872 ISBN 13: 9781849542876

Publisher: Biteback, 2012

Synopsis

The Bank of England is a uniquely powerful, influential and secretive institution. The decisions which flow from it affect everyone in Britain and many further afield. It is a hugely important cog in the machinery of government, the City of London and the global financial markets. The Bank s powers extend far beyond its month-by-month direction of monetary policy to the oversight of financial institutions and to the wilder shores of economic policy, including hundred-billion-pound schemes to prop up Britain s ailing economy. This is the first inside account of the Bank, drawing on interviews with senior current and former Bank staff, which sheds new light on the Bank s role in the financial crisis, including Northern Rock, the banks multi-billion-pound bailouts and disagreements with the Treasury over Quantitative Easing. It describes Sir Mervyn King s idiosyncratic personal history, his controversial role as Governor and the often strained relationships he has with senior colleagues at the Bank, in Whitehall and Westminster. The Bank is a superbly written and well-researched tale of King s strong, controlling and often inflexible personality , of Machiavellianism at the heart of Britain s central bank and and the extraordinary power that this most secretive and remarkably autonomous institution wields. The book s publication comes at a key moment in the Bank s history, as it assumes greater powers to regulate banks and bankers, faces increasingly searching questions about its own accountability and prepares to announce a successor to King in late 2012. Dan Conaghan said: The Bank is the product of two and half years detailed research, drawing in large part on interviews with Bank staff, past and present, as well as with senior central bankers, financiers and politicians. They have revealed an institution which has never been more powerful, nor more flawed, and at the mercy of a highly complex and dictatorial Governor.

About this title

About the Author

Dan Conaghan, 43, has spent the past fifteen years working in the City, in corporate finance, private equity and latterly in the bond market. Prior to this, from 1991 1996, he was a news and features journalist on the staff of the Daily Telegraph in London and New York. He has also written for publications including The Economist and The Spectator. He graduated from St John s College, Oxford, in 1991.

Edition details

• Publisher: Biteback
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1849542872
• ISBN 13: 9781849542876
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320