Lehman Brothers was still in business, Gordon Brown was the prime minister and George Bush was US president. The last time the Bank of England held interest rates above 5%, the world economy was very different. There were warning signs, but few could have predicted the severity of what happened next.
Fifteen years later, the Bank again used its September meeting to keep interest rates on hold, bringing to a halt its most aggressive round of rate increases in decades, with rates set at 5.25%, the highest level since 2008. For many, the end of ever-higher rates could not have come soon enough.
