This week Ed Balls declined to answer my simple question, what has been the average interest rate in the UK compared to Japan, Euroland and the USA over the last ten years.

This was disappointing but not surprising. Ed Balls is an intelligent man, and is said to be ??on top of his brief. He often tells us that the Bank of England has been a great success story setting interest rates since 1997, so he must know the answer to the question I asked. How can you claim a sucess at setting interest rates if you have not studied the relative rates of the main central banks?

I assume Ed Balls just did not want to put his name to the answer, which would show that UK rates have on average been much higher than Japanese rates, considerably higher than Euroland rates, and higher than US rates. If he admitted that in public, it might cause?? more people to ask why we have had to pay a penalty in the UK for borrowing during the Labour years.

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