The ‘meets expectations’ is the key here. The BofE feels obliged, as it’s their ‘job’ to keep inflation under control, to keep pushing up interest rates until it is. Removing your leg will eventually sort out your dodgy knee. Carpet bombing will eventually win a war. And making companies with borrowings have to lay off staff who can’t buy stuff anyway because their mortgage and rent have become so expensive, means in theory prices have to come down otherwise no one can sell anything. But at what cost. The next election, most likely. There has, surely, to be a better way.
“The true impact of inflation on cash savings and pensions”
Leaving your money in the bank or building society has always meant that its ‘real value’ after inflation will go down. Although rates go up to, supposedly, control inflation, any chart you look at will show that, apart from a few very short-term blips (N Lamont, I’m looking at you) they are never more than inflation.