Test Match Special - View from the Boundary: Andrew Bailey

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

The Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey speaks to Jonathan Agnew.They discuss the inner workings of the Bank of England, tackling AI misinformation, and when he watched Aggers take 8 for 2 in a school match.

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YouTube megastar, Mr. Beast, and former Facebook executive Cheryl Sandberg all have in common. They're all being discussed in the new. season of Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast which explores the lives and fortunes of the world's super rich. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for Good Bad Billionaire, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. How do you follow the head of MI6, who was our guest at Lords? Well, how about a person who occupies one of the most responsible positions in the country? One of his predecessors founded Chance to

who was MCC president, his most recent predecessor, is now Prime Minister of Canada. So there's a bit of pressure on our guest who has a job which goes back to an original charter set in 1694. He's been in position since 2020. We'll all have an interest in his decision making because it affects our money. Who else will bring a gold bar as a cake? Of course, it's the governor of the Bank of England. Andrew Bailey, it's lovely to welcome you.

It's a huge pleasure and frill to be here, I can tell you. Well, let's start with a cake. Of the cake, yes. You know, that was, that is fantastic. Richard Moore failed last two weeks ago to bring a cake. He was going to bring one apparently modeled on the MI6 building and something went wrong. That, that is a gold bar and I'm estimating it's around about the 12 kilogram. A real gold bar is just over 12 kilos, yeah.

So it looks like a gold bar. It does. As long it doesn't taste like a gold bar. It's not 12 kilos heavy. I have to put in the name check for my colleague James Orch and his sister Rebecca who made it. And it's tremendously of edict. Now, real gold bar is worth about 1.25 million pounds.

I don't think the... Kate doesn't quite make... But is that about the right size? It's about right size, yeah. And the writing on it, it says fine gold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is to all intents and purposes. And it's...

Gold bars come in one of those few shapes. That's what we call a hovis bar. So it looks a little bit like... Like the loaf? Yeah. It's actually called a hovis bar. Well, that's... The nickname.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, well welcome. What do you think? It's a proper test match. Yeah. You know, here we are. What, lunch on day for the fourth day? We've made it to the fourth day. There's still plenty to go.

I'm enjoying it. I mean, it was a good morning's play. You know, I thought the... Arch's opening spell was fast. I mean, you know, he's got a tremendously efficient action. I mean, you obviously did when you... Well, how do you know that? Because I used to watch you and also because I can tell a story about you at school, if you'd like.

about you at school, if you like. Oh, not one of those awful stores about bullying or something? No, no, no, you were unfortunate. Well, I know about it was good from our point of it. So I went to school in Leicester, so we share a common background. Wiggiston Grammar School, yeah. Yeah, Wiggiston, yeah. And so we played Uppingham.

This was back in, this was been back in, I know, about mid-70s. And I think we only played Uppingham second or ever. Yes, you did. I'm afraid Wigston Grammar School was not considered worthy of the first. I wasn't actually playing that day, but anyway, look, we turned up and the Uppingham Cricket Masters came to ours and said, look, we've got this lad coming back from injury, right?

So he won't be on top form, but he has played a couple of games for Surrey seconds. So we were all out for 12. Somebody took eight for two. And you tell me that was your best, is that your best ever? Well, until I took nine for 70 against Kenya. Well, look, thank you for mentioning it. Do you remember the game? Do you know.

I actually do. It is ridiculous because I have got such a terrible memory now. I think I've just played and watched too much cricket. But I actually do. I remember where the pitch was. I think because it was a ridiculous. I think the game is over in half an hour. Because we've...

On our finest moment. We've bowed. I know, but I do remember that. But so, so, But you do, you did, well, you did play cricket. Yeah, not very well, but I did play cricket. Yeah, I did. I played a bit at school, then I played a bit of club cricket in Leicester when I was sort of growing up

and still when I was actually going to university. So I played for Odeby Seconds, I'm maybe, honest. Obe is just a, it's almost a sort of suburb now of Leicester, but it's a little bit south of Leicester. Yes, exactly. Nice ground, I remember, it would be good. Yeah, upland road. And we had great fun.

I mean, we used to go around Leicestershire, playing teams, and it was, oh, it was great fun. So sort of village cricket? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, O-B, I say Obe is quite urban, but we played village cricket, yeah. So we came up, I remember, came up to Weimswold, Richard. You're sort of... Oh, it is.

Wimswold's about, yeah, five miles from. Yeah, yeah, and there was a pretty aggressive looking goate at Deep Extra Cover, and it didn't shift. And so, you know, when the ball went, the ball was hit out there, there was a sort of, when we were fielding, there was a... You're going to get it? Am I going to get it? Somebody's got to go and get the ball. I don't have a move though actually chew it up but it is quite rural around there but village cricket you know I started playing village cricket it's it's just so much of a

fabric of absolutely yeah yeah yeah yeah the whole the teas and just the whole business of it we had another incident a little bit it wasn't quite as dramatic as yours but um this is these were in the days when there were still a coal field in uh west lestershire in the western Ashby or Colville. Yeah, so we went out one day and we played at Raudan Collier, I remember. And so we got there. And again, you know, the captain came up to our captain and said, look, the opening bowl is, he's not going to be full, you know, full speed this afternoon because he's literally just come up from a shift.

Yeah, you know, four for 20 later. We were thinking, what would this guy be like if he, you know, hadn't had a shift? I wonder who that was. Yeah, I don't know. But it was, it was. What I mean, Les Taylor? My old mate. And it was a funny ground because you could hear

when the ball hit the ground, it felt hollow. You know, it gave off this sort of slightly hollow sound. We were always thinking, what's going to get out of the sink or something? Mine underneath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's good fun. So what did, what was your, you know, what did you do? What was your foreto? I was not a very good batsman.

Right. Yeah. Right, left turn, opening, middle order. Sort of, opened a bit, yeah. Opened a bit at school, yeah. Yeah. But I, you know, I never delayed the number three batsmen very long. It must have been any, some sort of high point was there?

A little half central, a raising of the bat somewhere along the way? Yeah, there was a 30 odd I remember one day, yeah. Yeah, but you know, I loved it. I mean, I love cricket actually, so yeah. And I played a little bit at the University and I've only ever, I played two Sunday games for the Bank of England. Right. At Roehampton? Yeah, yeah.

Yes, because you mentioned me playing with Surrey seconds. Yeah. And indeed, and that's where we used to practice. Yeah. at the Oval right but a lot was done on the Bank of England ground at Roampton and I've bowled at next to John Edrich and people like that on those and Eunice Ahmed and those those sorts of players down is and is that is it still there well sadly we don't we've we got criticized heavily by the Public Accounts Committee in the House Commons a few

years ago and they said it was sort of too luxurious it was a lovely ground it was a lovely I mean it was very nicely maintained it was perfectly maintained so we've actually leased it out to the Law and Tennis Association because the Wimbledon qualifiers have been held there since, a bit after the Second World War, I think. And so they've taken the whole thing over now. But we still have a cricket club. They've actually renamed themselves West Wimbledon Cricket Club,

and they play at Wimbledon Rugby Club, I think. And so we've still got several teams playing. Yes. So yeah, there's a lot of, you know, we're very keen on cricket as an institution. A lot of people are very keen. Yeah, yeah, good. And so that was kind of it, as far as playing was concerned,

though, what was it? I mean, so did you get to Grace Road when you were at? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, a lot. Yes, I was a member when I was growing up, yeah. So in the sort of, you know, 70s. Right. So players then, so that would have been, well, that's the railingworth. Railing, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, because Rayling, Ellingworth, I mean, Mike Turner was the other. Correct. He ran it. He was the boss. Between them, they really transformed it. Yes. So, you know, they won what, the old Benson and Hedges Cup of years. They do. Well, Mike Turner was, he was a player. He was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a.

who played one or two games last year but but he was a businessman really yeah and he ran he he ran leicestershire and he ran it with it with a rod of iron i have to say but but very tight i mean i think you know from an economist's point of your business man's point of you yeah for him to make a profit i think he made a profit every year that he ran that club which is extraordinary because leicestershire it's it's you know you've got the premiership football team you've got tigers it's it's It's always a third place really in the pecking order. And so for him to run that. So he took over running the club.

Who do we need? Right. Railingworth. I think he endured from Yorkshire. Yorkshire. I mean, he's in his 40s. Then he needed a, we know, we need a bowling attack here. Ken Higgs recently retired.

You remember they had Graham McKenzie? McGreg. McKenzie. Yeah, fast. The Australian bowler. Yes. And he had a really interesting action, because he was almost sort of like side on in this sort of arcing sort of action.

Yes he did. He was very side on. They still tell a story at lords of him bowling a bouncer at awards and the ball going straight into the sight screen. No, it didn't stop. Bang, straight in. And then Ken Higgs came from Lancash at them. He did. So he'd retired. Yeah. I think he was running a sweet shop or something up in Blackpool. And so he was, I mean he's a terrific bowler. So he actually came down and did another 10 years. 10 years, I would think. So Ellingworth had him on his cards. But Realing was an interesting one, isn't he?

Because he, for our age, you're about the same age as me, obviously. I'm an early captain of England. I remember sitting and watching him. He was such inspirational. It's great titian. Yes. Because I always thought it really interesting, because he, I mean, he's an all-rounder in the best sense of the term. And I was funny it's interesting that he made them into a very strong one-day team.

Because you know, you look at it today, his game. isn't obviously a one-day game. Well, there was a containing bowler, right? He was, yeah, quite successful with his off-spin. But no, he got something, Brian Davison, who was the... Who was very hot, he hit the ball very high. Absolutely, thrashed the ball.

Yeah. Roger Tolchard. Yeah, Jack Berk and Shore. Yeah, Chris Baldestan. Yeah. Who bagged a pair here against Michael Holding. Yes. We were talking about that game the other day,

but opening bats. And he just gelled a team together. I saw, I was talking a couple of years ago, I was at Lords, and I was talking to, there was a huge, I spent an hour talking to Jeff Boycott. An hour? Well, how many words did you get in?

Well, there's a great story actually in the middle of it. It was the ashes test. Cameron Green got hit on the head. Yes. And so I out ran the concussion testing. Boycott just turns to me and shouts out, get up, you namby pamby. Well, that sounds like Jeffrey.

But he was telling me, he was telling me that when he grew up with Jack Berkenshaw Birkenshaw in yes and they played you know they were in sort of practicing endlessly as kids together that's right I'm trying to remember the name of the village it'll come to me but what was quite amusing about that was that it was actually in a sort of in basically a greenhouse that's he told that story yeah in a greenhouse it was yeah and actually and I did say to Jeffrey once well so how many windows did you break and the answer was none and he never hit it off the

ground he never hit it very hard at all yeah never hit it hard enough to break a paint of glass Yeah, so how did you fight? I mean you came into a team very young then with all these. Yeah, so I so yeah so I well after my eight for two. You're mate. Well I left I I'm a country boy and I didn't really get on very well down here. So I went and joined Leicestershire and within just a very few weeks there was an injury crisis. Right. I was the fast bowlers Ken Higgs.

Les Taylor we've mentioned and it must have been a few others because I was suddenly in the in the team. And maybe I debut so against Lankham. who had been my team, the team that I really loved and followed and supported from the age of 11. And it was all a bit of a crazy dream, really. And it soon became a nightmare because their overseas player was one Colin Croft. So if you imagine someone who can't really bat, coming straight from school, age of 18, schoolboy pads, schoolboy gloves, no helmets, and I look around to all these seasoned professionals who, were extremely anxious about the prospect of facing Croft but B had all the kit proper

pad thigh pads you know didn't have a thigh pad yeah what's what's that yes exactly chess pad all these arm guard I had little sort of crinkly green gloves little plastic boots to bowling and schoolboy pads and for a while it looked nasty because we I think lost six wickets quite quickly and fortunately in those days it was a compulsory declaration of a hundred overs yeah remember that yeah so I think Paddy Clifton, Jack Berger, actually, we mentioned, got some runs and I was spared. You were sitting there looking nervous.

But I mean, going out, I couldn't come to face that. But I'll be captain. Yeah, so I can tell you a slightly parallel story. So going back to the Bank of England, actually, in our cricket club. So we used to have something called Governors Day when we had the sports club. This was a Sunday in July. And one of the highlight, or the highlight of it, really, was a cricket game between the Bank First 11 and a Governor's 11.

Right. And so when Eddie George was governor, he wasn't, I mean, he loved cricket. cricket but he wasn't really into himself so we had an agent who actually recruited the team who specialism was West Indian test players and some of them were retired so Alvin Kalachran and Derek Murray used to come year year right here after year but then he did get years when one or two of them the current ones didn't have a county contract and there wasn't a test series so one year Courtney Wolff turns up so a very good friend of my David Buffam who's

sadly passed away now he was open the batting for for the bank team and he said to me he knew in advance he said I can't face him you can't face Courtney Walsh so anyway after he told me afterwards he said the first over was okay because he sort of bold looseners and then he came up to David and he said I'm gonna come off my test run up now and David said to him do you have to do that Courtney apparently just completely deadpan said yes Dave said first second ball I didn't see it I I saw the wicketkeeper going to retrieve the stump.

You know, I didn't see the thing at all. No. That is what the difference is though, isn't it? And we had another year of Viv Richards played. And I've never seen anybody hit the ball as hard as he did. Yeah. I mean, it's like a rocket going around. And that's the difference.

And you can sit, and you can sit and watch, like we are here or in the crowd, or you can watch it on the telly. And you can see the ball. You can see the ball. It's going quite fast. quite fast but actually when you sit sideways on or actually if you do get the chance they were to face that sort of bowling well when you sit watching yeah yeah you see hang on i went to the last day of the test the test find or the south africa australia game last year because mervyn's

was present to the mcc and invited me and sat in the pavilion at lords and it was fascinating it was only a morning but i want mitchell start bowling and he he bowled there was one balled boldery, bowled Tristan Stubbs and Tristan Stubbs played the right shot too late. I mean, they've all went through so fast. Yes. But I want to ask you, talking about changes in cricket and timing on this thing about playing that sort of bowling. I mean, I do watch 2020.

I'm not a huge fan of it, but I watch them to have it. These kids they've got in India now, I mean, they seem to just... How do they do the... 14, 15 years old? The hand to eye to coordination. I mean, what's... No. How do they learn that stuff?

I can't answer that. But I mean, you just... sit and just admire. Well, it's astonishing, isn't it? You see how he kicks on. And whether he can, people talk about transferring test match skills to one day skills. Let's see if he can transfer, you know, T20 skills to test cricket. Many of the IPL team seem to have a sort of, you know, somebody who's in their teens still or 20 who seems to be able to just come on and just, well, they've got a billion people to bash the things right from the, yeah. Yes, that's true. But you do watch, you clearly watch it. I watch it, yeah. Yeah, I don't watch it live. I really am sort of an old-fashioned test cricket person, but I watch it on television, yeah.

Yes, yeah. Well, I want to talk to you about your job now. Ah. If you don't mind. You can. Well, it's just one of those, I mean, is it kind of, do you aspire? If you're in your, what you do, is this like the top of the tree? I mean, do you aspire to become the governor? Is it like the main, you know, the main, you know, the, the I mean, so I've worked for Lankarind for, well, 40 years now, actually, not quite all the time. And I mean, I love doing what I call complex public policy, and we do a fair bit of that. So, you know, that's what, you know, just keeps me there and keeps my...

So, yeah, you know, I never said how to be careful now. It just sort of happened over the years. And I just, I love it. Yes. You know, and we deal with the most complicated stuff. I mean, we're doing with a load of stuff on artificial intelligence at the moment, which... Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I saw you feel. featuring a couple of days ago.

I did not, Nigel Farage and I did not have a fight. Let's be clear. We both said this, so it's not, you don't have to make it. It looks pretty dramatic. Yes. But also, it's actually worrying because it's a fraud. So just to explain, this thing suddenly appeared. It's AI, yeah, it's created an AI.

It's behind it is an attempt to defraud people, you know, which is what's most worrying about it. I mean, how, how would what? It's a cryptocurrency scam. Right. So they're trying to use this as a sort of, I don't know, an entrapment mechanism to get people to participate in it. The really frustrating thing we're finding

is we can't trace the source of it. They cover their tracks enormously well. So they appear often as ads on YouTube. And they don't get saved. So you've got to literally almost capture them at the moment. And then even then you've got to trace the source. And so there was one last year actually,

and it was quite funny because I hadn't seen it. And I kept getting people stopped me in the street. I get the train to London Bridge every day and back from where I live. And the guy who was doing the sort of signals to send the trains off, suddenly turned, I don't know it. He said, have you seen this? You know, and I said, oh, God, I don't know. That one actually, we asked. So you've had all the best, there have been the best boffins you could find to find out how this thing came from? Well, even if you capture the thing, it's quite hard to trace it. They cover their, technologically speaking, they cover their tracks. Right.

So, yes. And I worry for the public. I mean, you know, it's ludicrous than I. I mean, I think, I hope people realize that, you know, that would never happen. But I worry for the public. Nigra can't be a bit belligerent, can't? Well, you know, he was actually quite nice. He said, you know, he said, he and I don't agree on everything.

We've only met once, but, you know, he and I don't agree on everything. But he did say, but we'd never do that, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because actually talks about the relations of politicians, really. I mean, you are completely independent. completely independent. Yes. And yet you must be dealing with politicians. Oh yeah, I see a lot of them. I mean we're independent and it's very important. I mean but the independence is

prescribed in legislation so it's very well defined. I spend a lot of time appearing in parliament giving evidence which is important as part of our accountability so I see a lot of them yes. But when I mean they want you to do things are going to suit them surely feel yeah yeah yeah but so do do you feel that pressure I mean you know that like cutting interest right? for instance, I mean, do you feel, well, for two reasons, a pressure from the politicians who want you to do it because they want people to feel good. And actually, I want you to do it

because I want you to make me feel good, and I want a bit more money in my pocket, thanks very much. It's a big responsibility. Yes, and we always have to say, look, in the long run, you will feel good if we have low inflation. But I understand, look, I understand people, tend to want lower interest rates.

I mean, it's been an interesting time. I always, you know, Jake with Mark Carney, that, you know, he had tremendous. timing and I've got terrible timing because I started my term as governor on in March 2020 just as COVID was a bad date because we had a literally in the first week we had a meltdown in financial markets we had to do an emergency policy intervention in markets and we went into lockdown at the end of the week and I didn't see the star for a bit after that so it was a great start yeah and we've gone on that way you know we've had the Ukraine war we've had you know a little bit of

domestic issue with the trust government and then yeah we've obviously most recently we've have the golf. Of course. Conflict. Yeah, yeah. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Step inside the Range Rover sport and experience refinement in every detail. With features like cabin air purification and active noise cancellation,

every drive feels composed and considered. Explore more atrange rover.ca. What do Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney? YouTube megastar, Mr. Beast. and former Facebook executive Cheryl Sandberg all have in common. They're all being discussed in the new season of Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast which explores the lives and fortunes of the world's super rich. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

Listen now, search for Good Bad Billionaire, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm not doing it too political here, but with the trusting, could you see that this is going to end badly? Well, I've never met list trust. So I always say this because I'm not, you know, I don't pass judgment, you know, because I've never met her. I think that the idea that, you know, she didn't want to work with the authorities, when we are there to, you know, we're all trying to do the same thing for the country, was difficult. Yeah, yeah. Did we learn anything from COVID? I mean, would lockdown work again? Well, I think we did learn a lot from COVID. First of all, I mean, you know, we learned to work differently.

Now, I saw the other day, it's Surrey County Cricket Club are advertising that you can sort of come and work. Oh yes, bring your laptop. Bring your laptop here. Get your Wi-Fi out. So I think the fascinating thing is that it has changed working practices. You know, I mean, pre-COVID, I think, you know, you just went to work every day. Yes. And we all proved that we could run our organisations and, you know, run everything differently.

And it's gone part of the way back, but it hasn't gone completely back. And, you know, we do know we can do things differently and that's okay. It must have been, and then the politicians obviously had a massive pressure during that. time. Yeah. Almost making it up as you go along because I've never been here before. Um, were you under that same sort of? Yeah. Oh yeah. It was very pressurized time and um, I'm his own see her because Rishi Sunat was Chancellor at that point and I don't you know this. I think he has said this in public. I used to go around and see him occasionally there's always a cricket back there. Oh no he loves cricket and he used to come to the Oval.

Yeah. Uh in the evening often with his cousin I think and they used to just go in the nets and he said it was just a huge relief of pressure. Yes. But he loves cricket. Yes. He's I saw him one after he was Prime Minister after he stepped down. There was an India England one day series, a 2020 game in India. And he was on television in the box. And one of these Indian kids had got a century in no time. And I sent him a message to say, are you enjoying this? No, he does. He does love cricket.

And he's very, very, you know, he's very keen and dedicated to him. Yeah, yeah. He loves that. So when you get your committee together every six weeks, isn't it? I mean, nine people on. That's as many as the Pakistan selection committee have, I think, for their test team. How do you get sort of an agreement from nine people? Is that difficult?

Well, we don't always agree, actually. In fact, most of the time, we don't all take the same views. And that's fine. I mean, we spend quite a lot of time deliberating and discussing it. The staff give us tremendous briefing. I mean, we've got brilliant staff at the bank, and that's one thing, you know, we're very lucky. So we get briefed by the staff, and staff will say, look, this is how we interpret. what's gone on. So, you know, look, we did a decision last week. Yes. Thursday. And obviously,

a lot of the background to that is, well, you know, I mean, it's, we're just in a very, very volatile situation. You know, obviously, you know, Donald Trump had been saying that the conflict was going to end the next day for the last month. It looked like it was coming to an end. So energy prices had gone up. They were starting to come down. So, you know, our job is we have to judge well you know where are they going to go how much damage has been done in the Gulf to the ability to ship and supply energy and then what's going to be the longer run impact on the economy here those are judgments we have to make so you held we held and is that with a view to bringing down because we're kind

of promised two cuts somewhere this year we haven't that yeah so effectively we have tightened in that sense you're right because you know I thought we would probably make a couple of cuts this year so you know we've sort of taken those off the table now you know energy prices come down a lot. They're not fully back to where they were before it all started, but they've come down a lot actually, which is helpful. Inflation's actually, I mean, I say it's enormously frustrating because I really expected that we'd be back at the target, 2.0 target actually. I think we would have been. We're not, but it's coming lower than we fought it would, which is good. So our job now

is to look forward and say, we're always got to be forward looking because we can't change inflation tomorrow. We change it in a year, two years time. So, you know, how's it going to evolve with the current interest rate setting. So I think holding was the right thing to do this week and we'll be back again in six weeks. Yeah. Do you do sort of persuade people to what you want to be? Do you usually get your way? You're the governor? I've always been in the majority but I don't have to be. Merving King wasn't a couple of times. There's usually a fair amount of consensus in the committee but then I'll get colleagues who are often on either side of it and that's fine. It's absolutely fine because these are very difficult judgments. Reasonable people can disagree on

these things. Yeah, yeah. Why you just sell the gold off? I mean, apparently we're broker as a country, you just go down below. Most of it's not ours actually. Oh, so how much is down there? So we've got about 440,000 bars at the moment down there. So what is that equal? So that's about 550 billion pounds. Well, we're just going to sell some of that. Yeah, we're actually belongs to other people, but never mind. So we're the second largest store in the world, but almost equal to the First, the largest is the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, but both of us are very similar these days. It is physically, I mean, you can go down in a lift or something.

I threw a bit of security, actually, a little bit of security. And there it is. Yeah, and a bar these days is worth about, as I was saying, a million and a quarter, 1.25 million pounds. So we worked out yesterday what a cricket ball. If you had the weight of a, the weight of a cricket ball is, I know, it's about, five and a half ounces. In our ounces. It would be about 17,000 pounds.

Do you go down and just look at it and stroke it? I don't get it. Every morning I go down. I go down. I dust it every morning. Yeah, we occasionally we go down. We take, occasionally we take some, we take visitors down occasionally. Particularly if I've got sort of, you know, people who've got their gold there, some of my central bank government of counterparts who say, can I see my gold?

It must be. It is. It's funny, you know, it's funny sort of psychological. When you walk in for the first time, you think, oh wow, you know. It's not all in one vault, but I mean, there's a lot in one vault. Is it under the streets? I mean, it literally spreads all around. Well, I can't tell you for security reasons.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go. If you've ever stood on the Central Line platform in Bank Station and wondered why it's so curved, it's going round our vaults, actually. But it's a great story which may or may not be, it may be apocry because it's a 19th century story, that the governor of the day got an anonymous note. This is in our old building, not the current building, saying, I will meet you in the vault at a certain time on a certain day. So they're all looking, so the story goes, totally, sort of, what's this?

Can't be true. But then they decide, well, they just better go down there. And they do, the story goes, and they meet down there a guy. And he's a sewer man. Right. And he shows them that there is a way through. This is in the old, so don't try this nowadays. Is it a new building?

Has it been closed on? It's a new building, so don't try it. But this is going back in the 19th century. Now, we don't know whether it may be, it's a great story. Whether it's apocryphal or true, we don't know. No, no. I mean, literally, but sitting on all of that, it's, it must be quite extraordinary. I'm walking into that building.

I know you've done it a few years now, but you still feel a buzz going in there. Oh, every day. Yeah. I mean, it's a lovely building. No, that and watching, we have a banknote printing works in Essex. Going to watch backnotes being printed as the other sort of great role as well. Wow. Well, I was going to ask you about that. Aren't you choosing what's going on our next set of notes?

That we are, yes. Is that the Royal Wee? Or is that like you as a... Well, we're actually getting the public to it. So we, I mean, we don't, we choose the security side because that's very technical and it's very important because people do try to counterfeit the notes. But we decided that we're going to have to issue a new series

because, because of the fact there's always people trying to counterfeit, we do have to change them from periodically. So we decided to give the public a choice and said, well, what would you like? And we gave them some headings. Would you like sort of historical, more historical figures? Would you like wildlife? Would you like nature of English countryside?

I mean, you know, we're a nation of animal lovers. We are. It's probably a pretty obvious winner though. No great surprise that wildlife won. So we're now doing a second consultation on we've got 18, you can choose. We can choose for 18 animals, birds and fish. Which ones you want? And please do participate.

It's open until the first week of July. So that's for four. So only four, yeah. Yeah. Yes. So anything that particularly stands out from your mind? Well, they're all sort of domestic wild animals. So we've got, you know, fox, owl, you know, bee, you know, pine martin.

I haven't seen one of those recently. And then who actually designs it then? Well, then it'll be done. I mean, we have designers, but they have to work with, you know, we get the security features. We tend to work with outside commercial firms who produce security features because we have to move them on all the time. And change the security. Yeah. So there's a piece of wire that goes through it.

No, no, no, we've moved on to actually moving images, which is sort of what they call lenticular technology, where you, if you, you know, like kids used to have these things where if you tilt the note, you can see an image moving. Oh, yes. It's just, yeah, it's harder for people, it's quite hard to counterfeit that stuff, although people try. Yeah, yeah. And what about cash?

I mean, you're talking about the new notes and everything. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine a time when there really is no cash? Well, there's a great paradox in this. So we're all using it less. I mean, that's the case. I mean, the number of payments made in cash has gone down. We obviously know how much we've got an issue

because it's on our balance sheet. It's not gone down at all. So we've got about £90 billion of cash in issue hasn't gone down at all. Oh, really? And it's interesting when I say to people, so just take that number $90 billion and divide it by the population of this country.

I mean, it's not that simple. But if you believe that, every one of us has got £1,000 of cash. Well, I don't think we have, actually. No. I'll go and check under the... Unless you have, I don't know. No.

Right. So there is cash. There's a lot of it out there. But we, you know, our viewers, look, we will provide cash as long as the British public want cash. And whenever we ask the British public, they want cash. And that's fine. It's good. Yes.

And yet a lot of businesses don't. I mean, our local pub, actually the one by Stuart Broad is now a cashless, a cashless pub. Yeah. I mean, there's more and more of this going. I think that's unfortunate. I mean, I know that it's, you know, there's a sort of a sort of. a cost element in it, but I think it's unfortunate. And people want cash for various reasons.

I mean, some of people want it. Maybe want it because it's a backup. Yeah. They say, well, what happens if all these systems, you know, go down? And that did happen in Spain a couple years ago. Some people use it as budgeting tool, and that's perfectly reasonable.

So, you know, we will provide it as long as people want it. And they do. How do you get judged in your job at the end? How have you? Regularly. Well, refrefer. Well, rephrase it. How will people say, oh, he was a good governor? Oh, oh, no, Andrew.

I mean, what makes a good governor of the Bank of England? Well, I mean, I would say, but I would, wouldn't I, that you have to deal with, you know, what comes your way. And frankly, I mean, it is true in my time. We've had a lot of, frankly, shocks in the world to deal with. You know, if you go back to an earlier period, it was much calmer. You know, we have to deal what we have to deal with. I mean, you know, that's what's what we're here for. Yeah.

Do you feel, I mean, is, and again, is it like a legacy that you can leave in your time? Because you're on a set time? Eight years, yeah, yeah, I've got just under two years now. So do, does that leave you with an opportunity of doing something for the good, as it were? Well, I hope so. I mean, there are changes we've made, certainly, and, you know, the institution has to constantly move on. As I said, you know, at the moment, I said earlier with the moment, you know, one of the big things we're dealing with is, you know, the impact of artificial intelligence. Yes.

That does seem to be the big, scary thing at there. big thing yeah yeah well I'm glad that you and Nigel Farage wasn't actually for real no no no I still think I think you'd come out I think you'd come out on top oh I don't let's not speculate but yeah but it's it's it's extraordinary right like well that's it's over already well it's my pleasure oh no and it's been all of our pleasure really lovely to thank you for coming and you've clearly you clearly love cricket and you can settle and enjoy a day but thank you so much and as long as you drop the interest rates to end the next month, you can come back again.

Oh, okay, right. Lovely to have met you. Love you, Jonathan. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. I think you reminded me of that mad day. Eight for two. Yeah, thank you. Just every now and then, you know, you just need a bit of a pickup. So thanks to doing that.

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. On the open road, conditions change. Your composure doesn't have to. But technologies like terrain response to and clear sight ground view, Range Rover Sport brings confidence and control the challenging conditions. Explore more atrangerover.ca. He's widely recognized as one of the greatest footballers in history.

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