PEACE at last at the Bank of England. After months of rows about interest rates, the nine-strong (or should that be weak?) monetary policy committee has voted unanimously for rate cuts at its last three meetings.

These have been the most dramatic rate decisions in the 11-year history of the MPC, cutting rates from 5% to 4.5% in October, to 3% in November and then to 2% this month, with everyone agreeing on the exact size and timing of the cuts — an incredible turnaround for a committee so split since last year over what to do.

Even as recently as July and August, David Blanchflower was voting for cuts, Tim Besley was pushing for hikes, and the rest seemingly had no idea at all.

So what has brought about this sudden unanimity? Has the MPC been leaned on by the Government? Has Bank Governor Mervyn King demanded unity? Or do these truly independent, clued-up MPC members at the heart of our economic stability really all think the same?

Who used to be a billionaire?
CITY SPY wonders which billionaire confided in Luke Johnson (right, with his wife Liza) that he had lost 60% of his fortune in the crash.
The Channel 4 chairman does not give a name. One obvious candidate is his pal David Ross, the suddenly ex-deputy chairman of Carphone Warehouse. However, he is thought to have lost far more than 60%, after Carphone shares fell and his property investments turned sour.
Luke, you can't do this to us — please tell.

Madoff and the property men
STEVE Siegel is head of global brokerage at the world's largest property agent, CBRE. He is a larger-than-life character who works out of a larger-than-normal corner office in CBRE's HQ in the Met Life building in New York.
Alas, he is not a happy man today. For Siegel is one of dozens in the New York real estate community hit by the Bernie Madoff scandal.
Several partners at CBRE, as well as Knight Frank's US affiliate, Newmark Knight Frank, have lost personal cash. Dozens of developers have also been hit. They pledged funds held by the disgraced financier as collateral against loans taken out to build office and apartment blocks.But there is one lucky man: Jeffrey Gural, chairman of Newmark Knight Frank. He says Madoff turned his family down as investors about eight years ago — because they would not invest at least $20 million (£13 million).

GORDON Brown has created three million jobs since Labour came to power in 1997. Or that's what he claims. The real number of extra people in work is
2.3 million, but what's 700,000 when it comes to a bit of Government spin? Nor does it matter that the number of people of employable age has risen by 2.5 million in that time. Or that the vast majority of those new jobs are in the public sector.

ANATOLE Kaletsky of The Times, writing on 16 June 2008: “So let me stick my neck out and say without qualification — the US economy is out of the woods.” On 16 December 2008, a desperate Federal Reserve slashes interest rates yet again
to a historic low of between 0.25% and zero.

WHAT'S Tory leader David Cameron up to with his demand for a “day of reckoning” for bankers? This is the same Cameron who, in September, declared: “What you won't hear from me this week is the sort of easy cheap lines beating up on the market system, bashing financiers. It might get you some easy headlines, but it is not going to pay a single mortgage, it's not going to save a single job.”

MORE on Channel 4 News' exposé of lavish BBC spending on parties — when the Beeb is meant to be slashing costs, and when C4 is itself lobbying for more public money. It also coincides with a growing campaign to highlight the BBC's controversial halving of its horseracing coverage to just 14 days a year even though it continues to exclusively cover two of the “Crown Jewel” sports events, the Grand National and Derby. Which channel would like to get its hands on the Aintree and Epsom showpieces, and Royal Ascot?
Yes, C4.

In deep water with France over plan for Atlantic arc'
FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown may seem best of mates as they jointly try to “save the world” from economic collapse, but that doesn't mean traditional French suspicion of Perfidious Albion — and especially the influence of London — has gone away.
Former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is floating the idea of a new super-region along his country's Atlantic coastline. The reason? To provide a Gallic counterweight against what many in France see as the dominant economic axis in Europe, running from London through Amsterdam and the Rhine Valley to Milan — and excluding much of France.
This new “Atlantic arc”, as Raffarin calls it, would instead feed into the alternative — and rather more Latin — Brussels-Madrid economic axis.
“I have long advocated this idea of an Atlantic arc,” insists the former Premier, who now sits in the French Senate.

BRITISH Airways has finally got around to cutting its fuel surcharges — a reduction that takes £70 off the cost of the longest return flight. Intriguingly, within a couple of hours, BA's great rival Virgin Atlantic did exactly the same thing — and with exactly the same size of cut. Is this collusion? Should the US Department of Justice be told? Is Virgin feeling remotely guilty about turning Queen's evidence and sending four BA officials up before the beak next month over alleged price-fixing which could see them jailed for up to five years?

WHOOPS! City Spy's piece on Resolution yesterday was not quite right. The £10 million a year that goes to the management company is not pay but “operating expenses”. They're not entitled to up to 30% of Resolution in the event of a change of control — only to a share of the value created. So if Resolution is wound up before any of the £600 million raised is spent, there's no entitlement.

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