Raise rates, check inflation, good for savers, bad for those with 100% plus mortagages. Welcome back to negative equity more homeless. Upside lower house prices. This Labour government have got themselves in a mess. Time to lower all taxes, nanny is going to abandon you all.

steve tea, manchester, cheshire

Raise rates! Keep inflation in check! Bring house prices back to an affordable level! There is too much greed today. Those investors who have bought up a large chunk of the housing stock have had it good for too long. At what cost? Give savers a chance to now catch up and buy their dream home.

Ann, Birmingham,

Business, shmissness. Its time the Bank represented England - the rest of us - and not "Business". Raise rates to block inflation, and help HOUSE PRICE inflation adjust to sensible levels which the Bank failed to do for 10 years.

Joe, Manchester,

There are plenty of deflationary pressures on the economy as it is without increasing interest rates. With fuel, food prices etc taking a large chunk out of people's incomes, increasing interest rates can only add to the pressure for large pay rises.

John, Aberdeen, UK

Excellent and wise trend. Interest not only should go up by a quarter point, but to 15% (same as Iceland). This would leach the inflation out of the economy, attract vast amounts of carry trade into the economy, encourage saving, reward savers (many who are old), and push out the indebted.

Bob Macdonald, London, UK

Increasing interest rates would be counter productive, sterling might rise making imports cheaper (i.e Oil) but would also make exports dearer so manufacturing would suffer a double blow as it would also take money out of the UK economy which could lead to a full recession. Be brave & cut rates

David Harrison, Grantham, UK

Inflation is the increase in money supply beyond any increase in productivity. Inflationary pressures are there because the banks were given a licence to print money. The credit crunch is the correction. Increasing interest rates punishes us for their misdemeanours. A 2% cut is called for.

PJW Holland, London,

Who are all these people in France and Spain with an opinion on what is happening in Britain. Shouldn't they be concerned about what is happening abroad or are they hoping to gain something from their comments in British national newspapers?

judy, Liverpool, England

Better be careful, people can't afford this. Reposessions will follow.

judy, Liverpool, England

Its too late now to stop the downturn, momentum has been gathering since August 2005 when the BOE cut rates instead of raising them. Recession is hitting now and there is no way to prevent it happening in the short term. Raise rates to tackle inflation,salvage something out of this awful mess

Amanda, Lancaster, UK

Labour, in particular Brown & Blair, has ruined this once great Britain and once united Kingdom. So, as the country is bust, let's now hope for massive inflation & massive pay rises - in a few years time our mortgages will be insignificant compared to our salaries! Brown your time is up get out now!

Jon, Preston, England

Andrea, a rate cut will push Sterling lower, just as the previous three cuts pushed it from €.140 to €1.25, thereby pushing food and fuel prices even higher. The base rate should be raised until Sterling is above €.140 again.

Paul, Coventry,

Bill from Leeds has a strange view, if he thinks that 'collapsing the economy' is a price worth paying to control inflation. The factors controlling inflation are already proving self-regulating, whereas raising interest rates will bring about business bankruptcies on an unprecedented scale.

Rick Balmforth, Norwich, UK

Recent inflation is due to fuel prices passed onto supermarket distribution-hence increase in foods to much more that 3.8%. Most recent inflation is not consumer borrowing based- this is clear from the decline in house market and other cap ex type buys connected to borrowing. Big mistake to increase

Phillip, Nottingham, England

The MPC should raise rates.Drive out inflation even if it collapses the economy.

Bill, Leeds, uk

seven members divided.this calls for a person who knows whats needed and why.Im ready and waiting and ill do the job for free

paul goulder, norwich, norfolk

Ian, Essex, Janet is right. Core inflation excludes commodities, energy and food prices.
The inflation we are experiencing in therefore due to the products above. A rate increase would not affect them.
the problem is speculation on oil. Cut the rate I say.

andrea ceccanti, london,

I think I speak for all savers when I say that I hope they increase rates. For those who have spent the last 10 years spending, releasing equity in their property, and borrowing on credit cards, now is the time for a bout of reality.

Brunty, Kent, England

I notice that just the hint of a possible increase in interest rate has made the £ go up 2.5 cents against the Euro. Keep taking the tablets, please!

Richard, Alicante, Spain

So doing nothing is a "strong message" that the MPC is willing to fight inflation?

What were the 3 back to back cuts then, other than an unmistakeable message regarding the MPC's intentions.

The market is laughing at the BOE's commitment to "fight" inflation.

Pathetic.

Michael, BOP, New Zealand

only whisper it, but our present horror arises out of massive personal, private borrowing- nulaba never grasped that growth based on spending borrowed money is not real growth, nor did Thatcher

peter c, devizes, wessex

Over 2%, surely need for a cut?

Steve, Weybridge, UK

The BOE does not have a dilemma. It's job is to defend the currency and fight inflation. If that means increasing interest rates, then so be it.

SRB, Abergele, UK

So they haven't got a clue then!

Brian Roberts , Plymouth, Devon

I note that a number of your posters have fallen for the Brown "it's all someone else's fault" line. Pin a red rosette on the behind of a donkey...........Exactly who, is zillions in long term debt -tell me please? Answer: 1. The country, 2. The people.

Robert Swift, Chelmsford, Essex.,

Don't these idiots realise that "just a spike in inflation which will come back down again" DOES NOT MEAN THAT PRICES WILL SPIKE AND GO DOWN AGAIN. A spike in inflation means a rapid increase in prices and, even if inflation goes down to ZERO afterwards, prices will remain at the same level.

Richard, Alicante, Spain

Has the Times told David Blanchflower that they have unilaterally changed his christian name to "Arch-dove"!

Tim, London,

Prices have triplicated during the three legislatures of Labour. How they can talk of an annual rate of 3% or 4% is totally incomprehensible to me. Of course, it is politics and not economics.

Richard, Alicante, Spain

Janet,
I'd like to shop at the same shops you go to please...
Other than house prices and possibly clothing, I'm at a loss to find anything that hasn't risen by more than 10% in the last year, so where do you get your "Core inflation is well below 2%" from?

Ian, Essex, UK

Lol, Janet, London...
Labour made Labour inelectable... This is just a case of UK PLC is going down the pan with/without rate rises. With no Gov't money left to help spend our way out of a recession I'm afraid we'll need something short of a miracle to help us with this one.

Hold on to your hats

Goldmember, Bristol, UK

Since when did the MPC ever rule out rate rises a month in advance??? More sensationalist and tacky reporting chaps. That's exactly what gets our economy in a mess.

Ian, Manchester, UK

Good news for my savings then! We should never have had the last three rate cuts in the first place ... they obviously didn't learn anything in 2005!

Andy, Bath,

Rise them already!

Nikki, London,

Interest rates up to 10%. and no more pampering to people in dept.

Mike, Berlin,

An increase in base rate would just drive this country into deep recession.

Fred, Wilmslow, UK

Raising rates now would be like putting your hand under the hot tap to ease the pain of severe burns.

Reducing demand by restricting borrowing through higher interest rates in a recession is irrational and unnecessary overkill.

Lawrence, London, UK

To talk about raising rates at this stage when unemployment is rising rapidly and core inflation is well below 2% shows that the academics on the MPC including King should be replaced. King has indicated there is little the BoE can do due to the global situation. He is making labour unelectable!

Janet, London,

I understand that the high inflation rate is predominantly due to global food and oil prices which are beyond our influence. Surely raising domestic rates might reduce inflation a little but only at a wider economic cost. Is it not the wrong way to combat THIS inflation?Please explain to me someone!

Berrecci, Bath, UK

7 out of 9 voted for a hold... the remaining two cancelled each other out one up, one down - Pray tell how does that translate into the headline of a split ?!

Nick, Bedford, UK

Interest rate rise! Nothing like a good recession - Bring it on........

james, edinburgh, UK

Damned if they do and damned if they don't?
If they let inflation take more of a hold than it has already it will be 10 times worse in the long run. We have all had first hand experience of inflation, it's not nice. It HAS to be controlled.

Graham , Littlehampton,

Sadly Rates will have to go up considerably. The threat of inflation is far worse than short reduction in house prices (that all seem obsessed about). I did start off thinking it would be nice for some of the more greedy buy to letters etc to come a cropper. Now I am not so sure? .

Austin Tassletine , South West , UK

Has Blanchflower ever voted not to cut rates? And how much does he get paid for these flashes of genius once a month?

Barry, London, UK

Dear Sir,
traditional cures for traditional ills are fine. However,
inflation caused by unprecedented hikes in energy prices (oil, gas, etc.) is not best cured by a dose of 'interest rate hike' .
Better to keep on hold for the short term until commodity
speculators unwind.

David Ruckert, Richmond, UK

Talk about dithering - we might as well give it back to Macavity Brown who is the real expert on this mode of decision making.

Stephen Green, Correns, France