On the morning of November 26, 2012, the day Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney was appointed to head the Bank of England, The Guardian’s live blog, anticipating the event, opened with the names of five possible successors to the formidable Sir Mervyn King. None of them was Carney’s.
In an editorial titled “The Right Man for the Old Lady,” the Financial Times had endorsed Deputy Governor Paul Tucker, with a perfunctory swipe at Carney to lead the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street—the B.O.E.’s nickname—as a dark-horse foreigner and “difficult choice” who’d reportedly plucked his own hat pre-emptively from the ring.
