There are few things on which economists are in total agreement. But practitioners of the dismal science come pretty close on the issue of independent central banking. Most see the move to hand operational control of monetary policy to central banking technocrats as having provided vital underpinning for the recent long period of low inflation and stable growth. Yet the independence of the world's leading central banks is increasingly under threat.

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One manifestation of the politicians' urge to reassert some control came in Japan when the opposition Democratic party recently vetoed candidates for the governorship of the central bank, leaving the post vacant for several weeks. Another has been the extraordinary public tussle between the UK Treasury and Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, over the succession to Rachel Lomax, an outgoing deputy governor.