Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey has caused a world of misery

THANKS to Bank of England plodder Andrew Bailey, we are all now mired in a “wage-price spiral” – an economic whirlwind.

Half the country is on strike, chasing pay rises to match the inflation he let rip as Bank Governor.

That stokes further inflation and fresh pay demands.

“But don’t blame me,” he moaned last week.

“Anything I might have done would only have made things worse.”

Bailey is the asleep-at-the-wheel custodian of our official inflation target.

His sole task is to keep it at two per cent or below — or write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining why.

Instead, over the past three years he ignored his own adviser’s warnings about ­surging costs — even as the war in Ukraine sent energy prices soaring.

He carried on printing money as if there were no tomorrow, and gave it away for nearly nothing.

Inflation has now been above ten per cent for months — five times the official target — with food prices rising at double that rate.

British families are struggling to put meals on the table long after things have become cheaper in other countries.

The cost-of-living crisis is a gift to union militants across the public sector — hospitals, airports, railways, schools, passport offices and driving test centres.

The Blob has even stopped “working” from home.

As Bailey’s own Chief ­Economist, Huw Pill, declared: “We’re all skint.”

This went down like a cup of cold sick.

But Pill was telling the truth.

The UK economy is spluttering. Crippling pay strikes can only prolong the agony.

The taxpayer — you and me — cannot afford ten per cent rises across the board, still less 35 per cent for doctors.

The strikers themselves are ­feeling the pinch, raiding their savings, taking on debt and wondering if industrial action is the answer.

Ambulance drivers called off their March strikes and are now considering a five per cent pay deal plus one-off bonuses for the Covid pandemic.

Thousands of security ­workers at London’s Heathrow airport want to grab a ten per cent offer which has been on the table for weeks.

It has been blocked by a group of striking Unite ­members whose militant leader refuses to allow a vote.

“I am annoyed,” says one. “It does not matter whether people want to accept the deal or not, but at least give us the choice.

“All I want to do is have a say. I will be even more annoyed if we now lose the offer because the union is not listening to its membership.”

Rail workers on up to £80,000 are poised to clobber much lower earners with walk-outs timed to sabotage half-term holidays.

Teachers are on the rampage, wrecking the education of a generation of schoolchildren.

Inflation might be about to slip below double figures for the first time since September, but the Bank is still signalling more agony to come for home owners with yet another ­mortgage hike.

Union militancy under a third-term Tory government was inevitable. Marxists were bent on shutting down the country with a general strike.

Bailey’s inflation added fuel to those flames.

City experts were astonished when this historian with a patchy past as head of the Financial Conduct Authority was given a pivotal role over the economy.

There was alarm as he carried on printing money — aka “quantitative easing” — just as the Government splurged billions on Covid.

Too late, too slow

Chief Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane publicly warned about the inflationary risk months before the Bank began, too late and too slowly, to discourage borrowing.

Wage-price spirals are ­notoriously hard to cure.

They kill economic growth and destroy governments.

Economic competence is — or was — the Conservative Party’s unique selling point.

Bank of England Governor Bailey has almost single- handedly scuppered it.

But it could be worse.

­Labour is in hock to the trade unions.

Sir Keir Starmer will simply roll over, follow the lead of Gordon Brown and pour ­billions we don’t have into the public sector, especially the NHS, all adding to that ­inflationary wage-price spiral.

And leaving the poor bloody taxpayer to reap the whirlwind.