I was having a pretty hard time pretending to care about the Bank of England on Thursday. Fortunately, Andrew Bailey gave me a hook.

A rate cut next month isn’t a “fait accompli,” Bailey remarked, following another on-hold meeting at which Dave Ramsden joined Swati Dhingra in a dovish dissent. Nor, Bailey said, is a cut “ruled out.”

The implication’s clear enough: With the hawkish dissents having disappeared in March and with the forward guidance now asymmetrically skewed towards easing, the June meeting’s a coin toss for the first BoE cut. And that’s exactly how traders priced it on Thursday.

If this were Jerome Powell, the Fed and US rates traders, there’d be mass confusion. Americans speak only English, and that just barely. For us, “fait accompli” might be a new yogurt brand. Or maybe a Chuck Norris movie.

Even our algos are stupid. If Powell rolled out “fait accompli” during a press conference to describe the odds of a rate cut at the next policy gathering, the machines would short circuit.

Jokes aside (unless you consider the figure below a joke, which I most assuredly do), the BoE’s new projections continued to suggest inflation will moderate close to target in the near-term before drifting higher thereafter.

Try to appreciate the sheer blatant absurdity of projecting an economic variable out to Q2 2027. What, exactly, is the point of that? It’s not hubris. It’s just dumb.

During the press conference, Bailey said the macro environment has now normalized such that inflation outcomes are at least somewhat more predictable than they were over the last three years.

The BoE’s forecasting track record was so bad during the pandemic/war period that Bailey called in Ben Bernanke for a postmortem. Because Bernanke’s forecasting track record is sterling.

Recall that after falling to a two-and-a-half-year low in March, UK inflation was stubborn in April.

Much as I enjoy hearing myself talk (type) I won’t bore readers with a belabored analysis of May’s MPC. Suffice to say the BoE may cut rates next month and the ECB very likely will too. That, as the first Fed cut will almost surely to be delayed until at least September. That’s a meaningful policy divergence, and it has clear ramifications for the pound and the euro. That’s the main takeaway.

Oh, and even as Jeremy Hunt on Thursday cautioned the BoE to be “absolutely sure” before cutting rates, don’t confuse that with an aversion to rate cuts. “What we want is sustainably lower interest rates,” Hunt said, in the same remarks.

Last month, in a rather transparent display, Hunt suggested Rishi Sunak will be ready to call for elections as soon as Bailey’s ready to cut. “The feel-good factor as interest rates start to come down will be stronger in people’s minds come early autumn,” Hunt mused.

Labour boasted a 30ppt lead in the latest YouGov poll. Now that’s a fait accompli.