Editorial: A sight rise in interest rates the least bad option

​Such an increase, from the current rate of 4.25%, is the least bad option for the British economy.

Interest rates have been far too low for far too long.

For most of the last 15 years they have been hovering between just above zero and 1%, in a desperate bid to revive and sustain the financial system and faltering businesses after the crash of 2008.

Just when there was a prospect of some sort of move towards normality, Covid happened. Rates were cut even further and at one point seemed set to plunge into negative territory.

Imagine that - savers paying to keep cash in a bank.

Meanwhile, for much of this long period of financial abnormality, the government, or the Bank of Englan, has been, in effect, printing money.

What happens when you print too much money? Inflation.

Now inflation is alarmingly high, at around 10%. It is we are told mainly caused by global factors such as the Ukraine war and fuel prices, yet it is not coming down as the experts said it would.

Lost in all this extreme financial support is a thing called moral hazard.

At its simplest moral hazard refers to concepts such as the idea that it is wrong to support individuals or businesses who have over borrowed because they need to learn that such risks might have negative consequences. The flip side