Bank of England governor Eddie George will change tack - despite the best efforts of Bradford's manufacturers urging him to change course.

Mr George, captain of the good ship Bank of England, openly acknowledged the suffering of local business people trying to keep their heads above water.

He addressed 1,000 of them in Bradford's St George's Hall last night - but made little effort to throw them a lifeline.

The main aim of the Bank of England's monetary policies, he said, was to keep inflation down and prevent the "bust-and-boom" economic cycles of the past.

But he offered little to Bradford's struggling manufacturers and exporters about how they could be assisted by the Bank's policies. He was no knight in shining armour, no St George to the firms which are having to make people redundant to keep costs down.

It was Eddie George's first visit to Bradford and he was delighted that the former Stakis Hotel, where he was staying, had been recently renamed the Hilton.

"I have not seen much of Bradford, but I like the look of the town hall. I will take back a sense of what is happening in Bradford and my impression will be helpful in trying to look behind the narrow economic data," he said before his speech.

Mr George - the 118th Governor of the Bank of England - was addressing a wide range of business people as keynote speaker for the Bradford Chartered Institute of Bankers and Bradford Chamber of Commerce, whose president, Judith Donovan, chaired the proceedings.

He was there to deliver the West Yorkshire Lecture and answer questions about the economy. It was mainly manufacturers who raised their hands to pose questions after his speech.

They asked him what he could do to stop exporters being, as one audience member put it, "wiped out by other people from abroad". He was asked about the North-South divide and whether the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England made its interest rate decisions on how they would affect soaring house prices in the South.

He was also asked how much longer he felt the manufacturing businesses of this area would have to suffer after years of fighting a strong pound and unfair competition from cheap imports from abroad.

He offered robust answers to these and other questions, explaining that all factors were taken into consideration when setting interest rates - Steady Eddie, you might say.

And he also expressed his relief that Britain had not ditched the pound in favour of the euro, arguing to do so now could cause firms even greater hardship.

He said: "Some of you involved in those sectors that are suffering from the weakness of the euro would - from your own perspective - like us to go further and try more actively to drive the exchange rate down.

"If I were in your shoes, I'd be tempted to argue that myself. What that would be likely to mean in our present situation is substantially lower interest rates. That might even provide some relief to the suffering sectors in the short term.

"But increasing demand pressure and accelerating inflation would need to be brought back under control involving a more abrupt tightening of policy. That would not do the suffering sectors much good for very long."

Experts' views

We asked some of the key players in the district what they thought of Eddie George's speech.

Judith Donovan, president of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, left, said: "It was a pity there was less relevance than there should have been to the challenges facing Bradford and the manufacturing sector."

John Dowd, managing director of Morrisons, said: "I was pleased to hear how confident he was in the overall UK economy, but he does not seem to give due consideration to underprivileged areas of the country."

John Watson, chairman of Business Link Bradford & District, above, said: "He was a very impressive analyst and acknowledged the problems of manufacturing but did not give a hint as to what he would do about it."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.