IT appears that life at the Bank of England has become a lot more interesting again.

This is not necessarily a good thing, given all the old adages about how central banking should be boring.

After years of being able to safely assume a rise in UK base rates was not imminent, a poll of economists published last week by Reuters was eye-catching indeed.

It showed that, all of a sudden, most economists expect the Bank of England to raise UK base rates by a quarter-point at the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC’s) next meeting in early November, from a record low of 0.25 per cent.

This dramatic change of belief has resulted from what has been interpreted as a signal, in a statement from the Bank following the MPC’s meeting on September 14, that most interest-rate setters are now minded to push benchmark borrowing costs higher soon.

There has not been a rise in base rates for more than a decade.

And, although a majority of economists now predict a rate rise on November 2, most also believe such a move would be a mistake. Of 50 economists surveyed by Reuters, 31 forecast a rate rise on November 2. And 35 of 47 economists took the view that now is not the time to be increasing borrowing costs.

This stark distinction, between what economists believe the Bank will do and what they think it should do, underlines the scale of the dilemma facing the MPC.

At the MPC’s meeting two weeks ago, seven members supported no change in base rates and two preferred a rise. However, it was not the voting split that started the hares running in terms of expectations that a rate rise might now be imminent.

Rather, it was a characteristically dry and wordy, but nevertheless seemingly pointed, statement.

The Bank declared: “A majority of MPC members judge that, if the economy continues to follow a path consistent with the prospect of a continued erosion of slack and a gradual rise in underlying inflationary pressure then, with the further lessening in the trade-off that this would imply, some withdrawal of monetary stimulus is likely to be appropriate over the coming months in order to return inflation sustainably to target.”

Annual UK consumer prices index inflation, which had by August surged to 2.9 per cent from 0.3 per cent in May last year ahead of the Brexit vote, is way above the MPC’s two per cent target.

CPI inflation has, undoubtedly, been fuelled by sterling’s post-Brexit vote plunge. And, crucially, it is already having a corrosive effect on household incomes and living standards, with average earnings once again falling in real terms.

Falling average earnings have, of course, since 2010 become something of a hallmark of the Tories, who have seemed keen on minimising workers’ rights as well as clamping down unnecessarily on the pay of hard-pressed public sector workers while reducing corporation tax dramatically.

Falling real incomes for the population at large, as well as seemingly becoming a sad inevitability of life under the Conservatives, have obviously also played a huge part in a further sharp slowdown in UK economic growth from already dismal rates.

With former chancellor George Osborne’s much-vaunted march of the makers having failed to materialise, even before the ill-judged Brexit decision by the UK electorate, there has for years now been a ridiculous over-reliance on often financially exhausted consumers to keep growth in the economy going.

In this regard, it was interesting to see the Bank of England sound yet another note of caution this week about the pace of growth of unsecured consumer credit. And about the potential consequences if the UK economic situation takes another lurch for the worse.

The Bank’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) said: “Within a benign overall domestic credit environment, there is a pocket of risk in the rapid growth of consumer credit.”

The FPC judges this is “not a material risk to economic growth” because consumer credit represents only 11 per cent of overall household debt.

However, it warned: “It is a risk to banks’ ability to withstand severe economic downturns, because this asset class is disproportionately more likely to default...The FPC judges that lenders overall are placing too much weight on the recent performance of consumer lending in benign conditions as an indicator of underlying credit quality.

“As a result, they have been underestimating the losses they could incur in a downturn.”

It highlighted its view that, in a “very deep recession”, the UK banking system would, in aggregate in the first three years, incur UK consumer credit losses of around £30 billion. This would equate to around 20 per cent of UK consumer credit loans.

This estimate comprises impairment rates of around 25 per cent on credit cards, 15 per cent on personal loans, and 10 per cent on car finance.

The FPC declared: “The FPC judges that lenders overall have been attributing too much of the improvement in consumer credit performance in recent years to underlying improvement in credit quality and too little to the macroeconomic environment.”

It observed the fall in consumer credit defaults also reflected factors that should be discounted when assessing how loans would perform under stress.

The FPC added: “These include the macroeconomic environment of sustained employment growth and low interest rates, as well as growth of interest-free credit card balance transfer offers.”

Some experts are in any case highly sceptical of the supposedly very healthy picture of the UK labour market painted by the headline official employment figures.

And it is very difficult to shake the belief that these hide much under-employment. You would imagine, for example, that the Conservatives’ vilification of the jobless would make many, who might otherwise try to claim unemployment benefits, become self-employed, even though they do not have much if anything in the way of work in such solo ventures.

What is more, the continuing lack of wage-bargaining power for most, which is plain to see in the average earnings figures, does not signal a labour market that is in any way buoyant.

After all, the real-terms fall in wages can surely not be solely the result of the typical Tory clampdown on trade unions and employment rights. Rather it reflects economic weakness. As the situation continues to deteriorate, and with Bank Governor Mark Carney yesterday again flagging Brexit damage, the MPC looks set to play a starring role in the UK’s unfolding economic drama, whatever calls it makes.