, commentators were unable to resist labelling members of the committee as either “ hawks ” or “ doves ”. i argued then that it made no sense to use these descriptions because each member of the committee had the same objective. members of the mpc cannot entertain closet views about their desired inflation rate because they will be held personally accountable for their judgments about the level of interest rates necessary to meet the inflation target. no matter. a good argument will never beat a good headline. hawks and doves it was, though there were also references to ostriches, foxes and hedgehogs, and headless chickens. no doubt there were even less flattering comparisons made in private. still, unlike england football managers, we have not – yet – been compared with root vegetables. and we have made progress. as chart 4 shows, press references to “ hawks and doves ” reached a peak in mid - 1998 and have declined markedly since. as i predicted in a speech in may last year, “ as circumstances change, it is easy to imagine that the ‘ hawks ’ shall be ‘ doves ’ and the ‘ doves ’ shall be ‘ hawks ’ ”. but we were also criticised for not being open enough about differences of view. the early minutes were thought to be too bland and to conceal expressions of individual points of view. much of that criticism was indeed fair. and we have tried to respond by making the minutes a more accurate expression of the range of points of view that are expressed at the meeting. but i should stress that the discussion of the mpc focuses on the relative merits of different possible explanations of what is happening in the economy, in a spirit of mutual enquiry, rather than an exchange of fixed and conflicting views. a second criticism, made by the imf team during the recent article iv consultation, was that, whereas the minutes explained in some detail differences of view among committee members, the inflation report contained only a single projection for the inflation outlook. again, there was some justice in this criticism, and we have responded to it. in fact, for three out of the past four inflation reports, there have been explicit descriptions of differences of view among committee members about prospects for inflation. what are the challenges for the next two years? if monetary stability is to be a permanent feature of british economic life, the mpc will have to overcome several challenges in the years ahead. two of these i would like to discuss briefly. first, how will the committee deal

trend, the labour market was continuing to tighten, and there was a need to slow the growth of domestic demand in order to reduce pressure on supply capacity. interest rates were raised at each meeting between june and august, and again in november. at that point the committee was accused of acting like a “ politburo ”. but in january 1998 the first disagreement occurred. the committee voted by five votes to three ( the ninth member, john vickers, did not join the mpc until june of last year ) to hold interest rates constant. in february and march the committee was evenly divided, and the governor used his casting vote in favour of an unchanged level of interest rates. disagreements continued and in june the committee voted 8 to 1 to raise interest rates for, as it turned out, the last time in that interest rate cycle. by now, many commentators were disillusioned with the evidence of disagreements within the committee. if i single out philip stephens from the financial times it is only because his description, written in july 1998, of unhappiness with the committee was more vivid and articulate than most. he wrote : “ the committee has thus far lacked both leadership and predictability. … on the evidence of the previous six months, the mpc bears a closer resemblance to a post - graduate seminar than to a forum for strategic decision - making. … to put [ several ] economists in the same room is to invite what one commentator has called paralysis by analysis. as a result the committee ’ s conclusions are entirely unpredictable. ” since the beginning of 1998, the committee has been unanimous at only one out of sixteen meetings. that was in july of last year when the committee voted to hold interest rates constant at 7. 5 %. disagreements have become the norm, and are much less remarked upon by the press than they were before. moreover, disagreement is now more widely accepted as natural. it would be strange if the uncertainties facing the committee were not reflected in small differences of opinion. and views of the appropriate level of rates have never differed by more than 0. 5 percentage points. nor have these technical disagreements led to “ paralysis by analysis ”. indeed, the committee has reduced interest rates by 23 percentage points since october of last year. it was precisely the analysis that led to the action. the willingness of the mpc to change interest rates either up or down in order to meet the symmetric inflation target has altered commentator ’ s perceptions of the committee itself. early in its history