A lower rate encourages borrowing and consumer spending, while a higher rate tends to serve as a brake on business and an overheated economy.The bank last cut its base lending rate in November, from 4.5 percent. It cut the base rate by a total of 2 percentage points last year, from 6 percent to 4 percent.The bank made no comment on its reasons for leaving the rate unchanged.. Equitable Life is bracing itself for a mass exodus from its with-profits fund if its up-coming compromise scheme is passed, wiping 25 per cent from the society’s coffers within the next few months. At that time the with-profit fund fell by £1.7bn to £20.1bn.Many at Equitable believe that number could triple in the first three months of this year to around £5bn, with many of the surrenders coming directly after the outcome of the Equitable vote is announced towards the end of this month.Yesterday was the deadline for postal votes to reach Equitable, while members can vote in person tomorrow at a meeting at the Wembley conference centre.

The scheme must also be ratified by a judge, which is scheduled to take place in early February.The scheme is a bid to cap the society’s £1.5bn liability due to the existence of 70,000 guaranteed annuity rate (GAR) contracts. The society hopes to bring it about by giving policyholders monetary uplifts if they agree to give up certain rights associated with their policies.Brokers also predict a massive number of policyholders will want to escape. Stuart Bayliss, a director of Annuity Direct, said: “It is difficult to predict but there could be requests for surrenders in the first quarter of up to £5bn. Christmas 2000 was grim at Iceland. The frozen food retailer had made a big push into organic food that sent customers away in droves.

Christmas 2001, and no one expected things could be any worse. But they were – 4.2 per cent worse, as measured by like-for-like sales figures

Christmas 2000 was grim at Iceland. The misjudgement meant that the City’s high esteem for Mr Grimsey is now just a little lower.Mr Grimsey asserted that the falling Christmas sales could be fully accounted for by five products (beer, soft drinks, prawns, pizza and chicken nuggets, since you ask), which had been aggressively marketed as loss leaders in 2000. Although there were fewer customers, they spent more on average. And group margins are much healthier without the uneconomical price promotions, providing a springboard for future growth.Maybe, but there is a lot of faith built into the current share price, even after a 6 per cent fall to 160p yesterday.