It would not have happened at Threadneedle Street in Sir Montagu Norman's day. When Britain's first modern central banker was at the helm of the Bank of England between 1920 and 1944, tweeting was strictly for the birds.
On Friday the Bank of England became the latest British institution to experiment with a social media live chat under the hashtag AskBoE. Its digital foray came just one day after British Gas suffered a public relations meltdown on Twitter when its AskBG hashtag triggered a torrent of anger and sarcasm from users.
The Bank of England's chief economist, Spencer Dale, fielded questions for over an hour, tackling the Bank's forward guidance policy, its view on the UK's European Union membership and who was his favourite economist – the surprise answer being his A-level economics teacher.
As well as defending quantitative easing as "not evil", Dale revealed that the 1kg gold brick in the Bank's museum stays shiny without being polished. In a freewheeling live chat that would seem at odds with the fusty reputation of central banks, he proved he was not shy of taking on critics.
When economist Shaun Richards asked: "With the dreadful record of the Bank of England on forecasting and inflation targeting shouldn't you be asking us not vice versa?" Dale replied: "Forecast record not dreadful.We do ask others views about economy."
But the member of the Bank's monetary policy committee carefully sidestepped a question on whether he preferred John Maynard Keynes or Friedrich Hayek – a split that encapsulates the clash in modern economics between interventionists and free marketeers.
"You need both, but not at same time and certainly not at same dinner party," he replied.
The Bank has amassed 46,000 followers on Twitter since it launched its account in mid-2011 and became one of the first central banks to use the social media channel.
The Bank had already decided to use the AskBoE hashtag before British Gas's disastrous experience with AskBG.
Dale said afterwards he was pleased with the interest in the interview: " The questions covered a lot of different topics and it was a pretty challenging hour (not least answering difficult questions in 140 characters)."
Although the Bank refused to be drawn on whether it had gone well, the early reaction from Twitter was positive. "Success I feel it was," said user Yoda, while another tweeted: it was "really cool".
More than 1,000 tweets marked #AskBoE landed on Twitter, a fraction of the nearly 16,000 that appeared under #AskBG, but they were rather more benign. As user Will Hedden tweeted: "Probably not the first to say it, but #AskBoE nowhere near as fun as #AskBG, but at least its informative."
theguardian.com
On Friday the Bank of England became the latest British institution to experiment with a social media live chat under the hashtag AskBoE. Its digital foray came just one day after British Gas suffered a public relations meltdown on Twitter when its AskBG hashtag triggered a torrent of anger and sarcasm from users.
The Bank of England's chief economist, Spencer Dale, fielded questions for over an hour, tackling the Bank's forward guidance policy, its view on the UK's European Union membership and who was his favourite economist – the surprise answer being his A-level economics teacher.
As well as defending quantitative easing as "not evil", Dale revealed that the 1kg gold brick in the Bank's museum stays shiny without being polished. In a freewheeling live chat that would seem at odds with the fusty reputation of central banks, he proved he was not shy of taking on critics.
When economist Shaun Richards asked: "With the dreadful record of the Bank of England on forecasting and inflation targeting shouldn't you be asking us not vice versa?" Dale replied: "Forecast record not dreadful.We do ask others views about economy."
But the member of the Bank's monetary policy committee carefully sidestepped a question on whether he preferred John Maynard Keynes or Friedrich Hayek – a split that encapsulates the clash in modern economics between interventionists and free marketeers.
"You need both, but not at same time and certainly not at same dinner party," he replied.
The Bank has amassed 46,000 followers on Twitter since it launched its account in mid-2011 and became one of the first central banks to use the social media channel.
The Bank had already decided to use the AskBoE hashtag before British Gas's disastrous experience with AskBG.
Dale said afterwards he was pleased with the interest in the interview: " The questions covered a lot of different topics and it was a pretty challenging hour (not least answering difficult questions in 140 characters)."
Although the Bank refused to be drawn on whether it had gone well, the early reaction from Twitter was positive. "Success I feel it was," said user Yoda, while another tweeted: it was "really cool".
More than 1,000 tweets marked #AskBoE landed on Twitter, a fraction of the nearly 16,000 that appeared under #AskBG, but they were rather more benign. As user Will Hedden tweeted: "Probably not the first to say it, but #AskBoE nowhere near as fun as #AskBG, but at least its informative."
theguardian.com
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