Bank of England announces biggest rate hike in 33 years

The Bank of England on Thursday announced its biggest interest rate hike since 1989 to combat sky-high inflation that it warned was pushing Britain into a recession set to last until mid-2024. Following a regular meeting, the BoE said it was lifting borrowing costs by 0.75 percentage points to three per cent — the highest level since the 2008 global financial crisis — to cool UK inflation that it sees shortly peaking at a four-decade high near 11pc. “It is a tough road ahead,” BoE governor Andrew Bailey told a press conference. “The sharp increase in energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made us poorer as a nation. The level of economic activity is likely to be flat and even fall for some time,” he warned.