When I was criticised for the policies of the Bank, I always asked who the critic was and where he worked. The answer invariably made me apathetic to the criticism. 2.8 A country may be able to keep politicians out of interest rates, but you can never take interest rates out of politics. When politicians therefore make statements about interest rates, tolerable central bankers should accept that politicians talk to th eir voters, and not to central bankers. There is no such thing as central banking by rules.
Discretion remains indispensable in the daily implementation of monetary policy.
Economics, after all, is not an exact science. In the world of macroeconomic policy two plus two may sometimes add up t o five. A central banker must learn to ignore any praise bestowed on him, particularly through or by the public media. This will justify his right also to brush aside the unfair criticism that will be launched at him next time from the same source. In our present world of a rapidly changing global financial environment, a central banker must be a student for ever.