Has independence changed the Bank of England?

It has been hailed by some as the best thing Gordon Brown has ever done, but what has an independent Bank of England actually done for us over the past 10 years? And what is the next decade going to be like?

We've celebrated a lot of 10th anniversaries recently the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair being in office, the 10th year of Gordon Brown helming the economy, and of course, a decade of independence for the Bank of England.

Many people argue that liberating the Bank of England from political control in 1997 was the best thing that Gordon Brown has ever done. It's ironic to be most fondly remembered for the parts of policy you have no control over, rather than the ones you do, but we certainly won't argue with that general sentiment.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.