Bank of England policy decisions are comedic these days.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a central bank so routinely divided on the proper course of action from meeting to meeting.

On Thursday, the bank decided to keep rates on hold but “decided” is almost a misnomer. The vote split was 5-4. At least the four dissents were in the same direction: They all wanted a cut.

Context is in order. At the last meeting, in September, the vote was 7-2 in favor of a hold. That counted as a lot of conviction for a panel which, at the prior month’s policy gathering, needed two rounds of voting just to produce a decision.

The BoE stuck to a “gradual and careful” (to quote what eventually became boilerplate statement language) approach while delivering five rate cuts following a truly frantic hiking blitz. That deliberate cutting cadence ultimately produced the most drawn out easing cycle since at least 1958.

There’s the chart. And as the subheading notes, the forward guidance in the (newly concise) policy statement suggests a return to rate cuts. “If progress on disinflation continues, Bank Rate is likely to continue on a gradual downward path,” the statement reads, omitting the word “careful.” (In September, the statement said, “A gradual and careful approach to the further withdrawal of monetary policy restraint remains appropriate.”)

The meeting minutes, which are released simultaneously with the statement and now include quite a bit in the way of color on individual voters’ assessments, showed Andrew Bailey was torn. Of the five votes for a hold, only Bailey was confident that inflation’s in fact set to abate.

Recall that headline CPI in the UK re-accelerated back near 4% over the summer, and there hasn’t been any meaningful disinflationary progress on the services side in more than a year. The most recent ONS release showed headline price growth stuck at 3.8% and core loitering at an uncomfortable 3.5%.

The BoE predicted the CPI re-heat beginning in February, when the bank’s projections flagged a Q3/Q4 upside inflection which the MPC warned would be “quite sharp.” It was that, and now half the MPC seems reasonably confident it’s over. Or will be soon. The new projections, released on Thursday, suggest headline price growth should be back down to 2.5% by this time next year.

As a quick aside, the new Monetary Policy Report is a farcical example of “TMI.” If they gave out medals for statistical effort, the BoE would get the gold, the silver and the bronze, but that’s not necessarily a compliment in this instance. More isn’t always better, and when it comes to macro forecasting, it’s easy to run past the diminishing returns threshold without realizing it.

Anyway, the longest and shallowest BoE easing cycle of the post-War period isn’t over. December looks like a lock for a rate cut. Because nothing says “cut rates” like services inflation running 4.7%. Fortunately for the dove case, Rachel Reeves’s budget is very likely to weigh on demand, which could help attenuate upside risks to inflation.