All of the City economists recently polled by Reuters expect the Bank of England to keep interest rates unchanged at 4.5 per cent today.

In the US, futures markets show a 96 per cent probability that the Fed Funds rate will rise by a quarter point to 4.75 per cent on March 28, the first US interest rate-setting meeting to be chaired by Ben Bernanke, the new Fed chairman.

The European Central Bank raised its main interest rate to 2.5 per cent last week and even the Bank of Japan is on the verge of givingup its ultra-loose monetary policy.

In short, monetary conditions are getting tighter in all the main economies of the world, apart from the UK.

Only the UK out of the group of seven leading economies, have interest rates higher than the latest annual growth of nominal gross domestic product.

But the pessimistic view of the economy is no longer one that is held by the overwhelming majority of City analysts.

Those on the other side of the debate are gaining ground and think the wind is swinging in their direction.

More evidence of improving business sentiment by the EEF manufacturers’ organisation, whose latest quarterly survey shows much stronger output, order books and investment intentions than three months ago.

But it is not the conflicting views of economists that almost guarantee no action from the monetary policy committee this week. It is the committee’s inaction in recent meetings that do not coincide with their quarterly forecasting.

Since late 2001, only two of nine rate changes have taken place in months other than February, May, August or November.

MPC members accept privately that there is a tendency for the committee to avoid difficult decisions in the other months. In the month following the report, they say, doing nothing is easier because there have been insufficient new data since the previous forecasting round. And in the month preceding the next inflation report, the temptation is to wait until the forecasting round itself before taking action.

The new quarterly cycle to UK monetary policy has been aided by the stability of the economy, which has allowed such sentiments to grow to the point thatthey are now included as published justifications for inaction in the MPC minutes.

So while the ECB has begun to deal with what it considers to be a rapidly improving economy, the Fed is continuing to tighten policy for now, and the BoJ is just about to start, all the evidence points to the MPC doing nothing. It is likely to sit quietly next month too, and the real arguments and analysis will take place in May.