Did Britain Just Undergo a Coup?

As I think I've mentioned before the United Kingdom is currently swimming in bullshit as part of the preparations for the G20 Summit. This means that I haven't been paying much attention to the news because I know it's mostly nonsense so to talk about it would only serve to indulge it. However something very interesting happend yesterday (24/3/09) when the quarterly inflation figures were released. The UK government has been justifying it's policy of quantitative easing on a prediction that the Retail Price Index (RPI) would show negative inflation and the more accurate Consumer Price Index (CPI) would show a fall from 3.0% to 2.8%. The released figures showed the RPI recording neutral inflation of 0.00% and the CPI recorded an increase to 3.2%.

Shortly after these figures were announced the Queen summoned Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England to a meeting. After that meeting Mr King issued a statement to the effect that regardless of what Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Britain will not be participating in any future fiscal stimulus. This gives the distinct impression that Brown has just been relieved of control of British economic policy. Technically this is not a coup because the British Prime Minister only sits at the pleasure of the Crown but it is enough to send a shiver up the constitutional spine.

Of course a large part of Britain's G20 preparations has been to create the illusion of a rift between the Crown and the Prime Minister so this may be part of that game. However in my opinion if this is a game then it is a very convincing game.