Outvoted King wanted £75bn QE injection

Mervyn King was outvoted by fellow policymakers in his attempts to pump even more money into the economy this month.

The minutes of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on 6 August reveal King and two other committee members, Tim Besley and David Miles, wanted to extend the quantitative easing programme by £75bn rather than the £50bn which was injected. They believed an increase to a total of £200bn was necessary as there was a risk inflation could stay below the bank's 2% inflation target for a "sustained" period of time. "The potential adverse consequences of adding another large monetary stimulus might be less severe than the possible costs of acting too cautiously." they...