This month's highlights - Will boe £75bn have any effect?

Katherine Brandon wrote on 5 March: "Today, the Bank of England lowered interest rates to 0.5% - another all-time low and the sixth cut since October. The Bank also announced that it would expand the amount of money in the system by £75bn in an attempt to boost bank lending. This policy of quantitave easing is untried in the UK as of yet, however, Chancellor Alistair Darling has given the Bank permission to extend this sum to £150bn should it be needed. Similar measures were implemented in Japan at the beginning of the decade and are considered to have had limited success but what effect this will have on encouraging banks to lend to businesses we will have to wait to see."

Mark DonFrancesco, group marketing manager at Towergate, wrote on 19 March: "Just when I thought this was a quiet week for writing the blog, along comes the CII President's Dinner at The Guildhall. However, take out the 'dinner' bit and, oh yes, the Guildhall, too, thanks to an ill-timed gas leak, and the cupboard's even less bare. I must say Sandy (Scott, the chief executive of the CII) and the CII marketing team pulled off a great drinks party at CII HQ - lovingly referred to as 'Hogwarts' by those in the know."

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