to fall back towards the 2 % target as the growing margin of spare capacity in the economy held back pay and price increases. since may, inflation has turned out higher than expected and oil prices have risen further, notwithstanding some moderation in the past week or so. but the news on activity has not been very good either, with some distinctly downbeat business surveys, including yesterday ’ s industrial trends survey, further weakening in the housing market and continued fragility in the financial sector. all this points to a worse near - term prospect for both growth and inflation. the net impact of this on the outlook for inflation in the medium term is less clear, though for our considered view on that, you will have to wait until our august inflation report is published in a couple of weeks time. moreover, there are considerable risks surrounding the central outlook. a particular risk on the upside is that the extended period of elevated inflation leads to an acceleration in pay and causes inflation expectations to rise. that could lead the higher inflation to become embedded. but on the downside, there is a risk that the credit crunch leads to a deeper and more prolonged slowdown, leading to greater slack in the economy and causing inflation to undershoot our target. in setting policy, we have been trying to balance off these risks against each other. in making that judgement, the more accurate a picture we have of the economy, the better. so the industrial trends survey, as well as the other business surveys, will continue to be a crucial input into forming that picture. let me therefore conclude by wishing many happy returns to the industrial trends survey on the occasion of its 50th birthday. we hope that you and your younger siblings will continue to flourish in the years ahead. thank you!

the most depressing aspect of past fx abuse was the light it threw on historic behaviour in parts of the market, called a ‘ bro - culture ’ by some, 3 in which inappropriate, sometimes illegal, behaviour became the norm through a process of what we termed in femr ‘ ethical drift ’. groups calling themselves the ‘ a - team ’, the ‘ 3 musketeers ’ or ( perhaps more aptly ) the ‘ semi - grumpy old men ’ attempted to pervert the multi - trillion dollar foreign exchange market on which everyone in the world in one way or another depended. for some of those active in the industry at that time, the culture from which this extreme behaviour emerged may have seemed wearingly familiar. lucy kellaway, writing in the ft, described the toxic male environment she experienced on an fx trading floor early in her career. 4 though many men were ( and are ) equally https : / / www. globalfxc. org / membership. htm https : / / www. globalfxc. org / global _ index. htm https : / / www. ft. com / content / 62001b10 - 90de - 11e8 - 9609 - 3d3b945e78cf https : / / www. ft. com / content / 511ad09e - 6be2 - 11e4 - b939 - 00144feabdc0 all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / publications / pages / speeches / default. aspx disgusted by such behaviour, it is unlikely to have been helped by the gender balance in the market. the 2016 gadhia review5 showed that, whilst women actually outnumbered men 60 / 40 in financial services as a whole, they were much less likely to be the managers or leaders who shaped the culture ( figure 1 ). and even when they were leaders, they were three times more likely to be running hr, communications or other support functions than serving in c - suite positions ( figure 2 ). figure 1 : average representation of women in financial services in 20 global markets figure 2 : proportion of executive committee functions held by women https : / / uk. virginmoney. com / virgin / assets / pdf / virgin - money - empowering - productivity - report. pdf all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / publications / pages / speeches