THE GOVERNOR’S EYEBROWS, so I used to be told, were the Bank of England’s own nuclear threat. When he raised them, the City trembled and obeyed. Then, one day, the reigning Governor — this was the affable Robin Leigh-Pemberton — told me that they had appeared in his dreams. More precisely, they had disappeared: he dreamt that his eyebrows had fallen out. I could only take this as an omen, and so indeed it proved. Now, in the latest instalment of the Bank’s long and voluminous history, Harold James tells us what followed.
It is, to his mind, a story with a happy ending. The Bank became modern. It forfeited much of its empire, and instead was required to keep inflation low and stable, regaining control of its traditional weapon:…
