“I think jumping to conclusions about causality is not meeting the BBC requirement for impartiality"
Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that the BBC would be breaching its impartiality guidelines for suggesting that the current turmoil and uncertainty on the financial markets has anything to do with the mini-budget.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy made the comments during an interview this morning with BBC Radio 4 Today.
Asked what his view was on ‘what many people regard as a very serious economic and investor confidence picture that has been sparked by the mini-budget’ before it was put to him that the government could bring forward the economic and fiscal plan that has been scheduled for October 31 to ease concerns, Rees-Mogg went on the defensive.
He said: “You suggest something is causal which is a speculation. What has caused the effect in pension funds because of some quite high risk but low probability investment strategies, is not necessarily the mini-budget it could just as easily be the fact that the day before the Bank of England did not raise interest rates as much as the Federal Reserve did.
“I think jumping to conclusions about causality is not meeting the BBC requirement for impartiality. It is a commentary rather than a factual question.”
His comments come after the Bank of England warned of a material risk to UK financial stability, as it widened its programme to buy up government bonds.
In the wake of Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget, the Bank had been buying up long-dated gilts – a type of government bond that make up a large proportion of pension pots –to try to calm the markets.
The IMF once more criticised the chancellor, saying that his unfunded tax cuts and energy support package had made the Bank of England’s battle against inflation more difficult. It also warned that the UK faces the highest rate of inflation in the G7.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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