Setting interest rates in the UK is a delicate business these days. The hawks on the Monetary Policy Committee cite falling unemployment, surveys suggest that companies are keen to invest and export and that economic models from the past predict that joblessness this low will soon push inflation higher. To head off these inflationary pressures, hawks think that there is an urgent need to remove the quarter-point cut of last August to slow spending, prevent unemployment falling further and keep prices and wages under control.

By contrast, the doves on the MPC urge wait-and-see. Businesses might talk about investment but few have opened their wallets and there is no export boom that I can see. Although unemployment is at a 40-year low of 4.6%, there is no sign of wage pressure with pay growth slowing even as inflation rises close to 3%. Household finances are also stressed with the savings ratio at a 54-year low. Any rate rise, they say, would be reckless in the extreme and risks causing a crisis in confidence that the MPC worked so hard to avoid last year. My view, for what it is worth, is that the need for insurance against a downturn is paramount. For now, the economy cannot stand the nasty-tasting medicine of a rate rise. We should wait-and-see.