The Bank of Englands Deputy Governor warned yesterday that the recession could be even worse than it suggested less than a week ago.
Charles Bean said that there was roughly a three in four chance that the economy would contract by more than the 4 per cent predicted by Mervyn King last Wednesday.
His warning comes amid mounting fears that the UK is heading towards a period of deflation. The retail prices index (RPI) is tipped to fall below zero when figures are published this morning. Mr King admitted last week that the UK was already in a deep recession. His forecast that economic growth would fall by 4 per cent during 2009 would amount to the most severe peacetime recession since 1931.
Mr Bean told the National Farmers Union annual conference in Birmingham that efforts to restore the banking system may take longer to bear fruit and that protectionist measures abroad might slow recovery in Britain.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is calling on ministers, MPs and the public to hold their nerve. He will use a speech in New York to say that recovery is a complex process, that the Government should ignore the frenzy surrounding the issues and not be rushed into judgments. Sources close to Lord Mandelson denied that his remarks were aimed at the Prime Minister, who has been accused of taking too many initiatives.
City analysts expect todays inflation figures to show that RPI inflation, considered the best gauge of the cost of living because it includes housing costs, fell to -0.1 per cent in January. It is widely tipped to fall to -4.4 per cent later in the year on the back of falling fuel and mortgage costs.
The consumer prices index measure of inflation is also expected to have fallen from 3.1 per cent in December to 2.6 per cent. Many economists believe that this too will fall into negative territory, tipping the country into full-blown deflation. In the worst-case scenario sketched by the Bank in last weeks quarterly inflation report, the UK economy would contract by up to 6 per cent by mid-year and continuing to decline next year and into 2011.
Mr Bean said that a sharp contraction in the first half of the year was already baked in the cake. He also indicated that the Bank was preparing for quantitative easing to tackle tumbling inflation, but said that such moves would not bring hyperinflation, as created by corrupt governments elsewhere.
If the Monetary Policy Committee chooses to finance asset purchases through the issuance of central bank money, it will not be to finance the Governments budget deficit. Rather, the aim will be to push up the rates of growth of the supply of money and credit, he said.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
