Inside the Bank of England review: A public relations job with too many dirty secrets hidden from BBC cameras

Judging by the thorough public relations job that is Inside the Bank of England (BBC2), you’d imagine nothing can, or has ever, gone wrong with the British economy. And yet, within the last decade alone, we have suffered a banking crash, followed by the Great Recession, followed by austerity, followed by the Brexit shock, followed by an investment collapse… and who knows what next. How can such clever folk get stuff so wrong? We don’t quite find out.

Of course, it’s not all their fault (well, you’d hope not)… but still, they do claim that their job is to make sure the British people don’t have to worry about their money, whereas we’ve spent most of our time since 2007 doing precisely that.

Hence we find, for example, Victoria Cleland, the 32nd chief cashier of the Bank of England, sashaying around her super-secure underground bunker, surrounded by no less than £3.6bn in readies – freshly printed banknotes available for distribution in any dire emergency. (Can’t think of anything imminent there, can you?)

Proudly, Ms Cleland then shows off what looks to be an old biscuit tin, filled with bundles of special £1m and £100m banknotes, all signed by her, just like the plastic tenner in your pocket is. She goes on about how many houses they’d buy, but if I were her, I’d be more worried about Boris Johnson mentally calculating just how many Conservative votes in marginal seats they might secure.

Ms Cleland further explains that the bank makes sure it has enough “contingency cash” for busy times such as Christmas, Easter, bank holidays, royal weddings and the like. Moreover, the Bank is also meticulous in ensuring a judicious mix of denominations, from £5 to £50 can be supplied. Very reassuring.

A mere 10 years ago, however, in a financial crisis that went virtually unmentioned during the course of the programme, Britain’s cashpoints were within two hours of running out of money (according to the memoirs of the then chancellor, Alistair Darling). As I say, that seems to be one of many a dirty secret buried even deeper in the Bank’s recesses than the gold, and far away from the BBC cameras.

Enter Mark Carney, the dishy Canadian governor of the bank. Here is a man so smooth, he outshines the highly polished Chippendale dining tables in the bank’s “parlours”. Again, you would not imagine for a moment that he has any qualms about inflation staying so stubbornly above his target for so long.

The programme makers certainly don’t challenge his record. I suspect – no proof, but still, that’s just like economics – that the producers would never have been allowed near such precious national assets as Carney, the UK gold reserves or Ian McCafferty, a tight-lipped City type sitting on the bank’s interest rate committee, if the broadcasters hadn’t consented to certain “parameters”, as they say in such monetary policy circles.

At any rate, the only remotely hostile criticism came from a few smartarse questions from the journalists at the bank’s monthly press sessions (an event I once attended myself, you know). When the FT’s man politely enquired whether the bank had simply decided to pretend that one appalling quarter of economic growth hadn’t actually happened, they didn’t demur, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. A few flakes of Carney’s veneer peeled off at one point, when asked about being an “unreliable boyfriend” to financial markets, but that was about it.

The documentary accurately captures the blend of tradition, antiquity and modernity that strikes any visitor to its elegant headquarters, so redolent of the age of imperial grandeur and mercantile adventure that the bank grew up in. It is an institution, whatever its record, that has talented and dedicated people, the most impressive and proudest of which was Alison McClean. She is a doorkeeper, and a formidable figure who uses a giant wooden ruler to calibrate precisely the place settings at the governor’s formal meals, and hits her own targets more reliably than the Monetary Policy Committee does theirs.

Ms McClean looks like she takes no scrip from anyone, and I can only hope she will use that hefty ruler to stop Boris getting his mucky paws on their lovely £100m banknotes. Even if no other female in London is safe, we must stop Boris from ravishing the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street like in an old Gilray cartoon. That would be worth filming, mind.