Simon Heffer

When the Governor of the Bank of England predicts that sterling, already sliding, could fall further in response to “a real economic shock” – such as Brexit without a deal – is he engaging in a nakedly political act, or is he simply doing his job? Given Mark Carney’s regrettable record during the 2016 referendum, when he avidly supported George Osborne’s pitiful “Project Fear”, we must discount the latter possibility. His intervention last week, as the Government prepared actively for no-deal, was susceptible to only one interpretation.

It is as if Mr Carney remains so affronted by the British people’s insolence in not doing what they were told in 2016 that he is determined to make our flesh creep for a second time, in the hope that now we might listen (albeit to one whose record of forecasting has hardly been foolproof) and demand, by means he cannot specify (another referendum? An election?), a change of course.

He predicts a fall in growth from 1.5pc to 1.3pc even if we do get a deal: and if we don’t, the terrors of the earth await. The Bank’s worst case scenario is that no-deal could cause sterling to fall by 25 per cent on foreign exchanges, leaving the pound worth less than a dollar or a euro. Even with a deal, Mr Carney cites a one-in-three chance of recession – something he confidently forecast in 2016 if we voted to leave, and which we still await. He predicts food shortages, inflation and a rise in unemployment. One wonders how we survived before 1973.

It is not just the panicked rhetoric of 2016 that this calls to mind; it is increasingly reminiscent of the fear

stoked up during 1999 about the millennium bug. It assumes that the Government and, indeed, the Bank of England stand idly by and watch while a catastrophe unfolds. The Government manifestly isn’t doing so, given the measures that the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, announced for no-deal preparations last week, and if the Bank is, then it might be because Mr Carney is so busy talking down Britain.

It also assumes a prostrate inertia on the part of British business, in not searching for new markets if Europe chooses to increase the price of its exports. Also, given the EU’s £64 billion annual trade surplus with the UK, it assumes no political pressure on the European Commission from EU exporters to get something sorted out – and that Leo Varadkar will happily continue to steer Ireland’s post-Brexit economy on to the rocks.

Mr Carney leaves the Bank next January. Given his addiction to political grandstanding, he cannot go too soon. He gives what one hopes is inadvertent succour to Philip Hammond, who with various other anti-democratic politicians appears to seek the revocation of Article 50, abandoning the Brexit process. These are dangerous waters for public servants to swim in, for if Brexit were abandoned, more than our economy that would suffer. It would signal the wreck of our political values, and quite possibly provoke civil unrest.

Mr Carney should let the Government govern, advise it in private, and in public keep his mouth shut.