Why has the Bank of England cut interest rates?

So why has the Bank of England cut rates when inflation is well above its target of 2% and seems set to remain there?

This vexed question is why the proceedings of the Bank's nine member Monetary Policy Committee were so close and even involved an unprecedented second vote.

The bottom line is that in the medium term the Bank sees the jobs market as exerting less upward pressure on inflation, because of a fall in the number of job vacancies and an increase in the jobless rate.

But Bank governor Andrew Bailey and his team will have some explaining to do.

Inflation remains high, and the very visible food price inflation figures look set to go up over the remainder of the year.