Mark Carney wastes no time in stamping his authority The approach was clearly too elliptical for the straight-talking Carney. He has ripped up Sir Mervyn's textbook and taken a lesson from Sweden instead. In Sweden, the central bank publishes its own interest rate forecasts as a kind of official counterpoint to the market. The Riksbank is not beholden to those forecasts, as events can change, but it sends a transparent message about policymakers" thinking. Carney's "not warranted" comment was tantamount to saying he expects rates to remain at 0.5pc until at least 2015. The vogue for "communication" is catching. In Australia, the central bank governor, Glenn Stevens, demonstrated how not to do it, after a "joke" backfired earlier this week, crashing the currency until his deputy calmed things down. At the European Central Bank, president Mario Draghi was more successful. In a break with protocol, he said rates would be at current or lower levels "for an extended period of time," delighting stock markets on the continent as they interpreted it to mean 2016 at the earliest. The co-ordinated effort was clearly a response to the clumsy handling of the markets by the US Federal Reserve. Talk of tapering QE triggered a damaging spike in government borrowing costs across the world that the ECB and the Bank evidently want to stamp out before it sucks the life out of any nascent recovery. Carney made the point clear by drawing attention to how "weak" the recovery has been and highlighting the fact that "a degree of slack is expected to persist for some time." In other words, he thinks the UK is nowhere near "escape velocity" - and from the looks of things he has the other eight members of the MPC on his side. In just a few short words, Carney stamped his authority on the Bank and the markets - demonstrating comprehensively to his sceptics that communication can be a powerful tool. Exposing himself as an arch-dove, he also laid down the gauntlet to traders who believe the era of stimulus is over. As introductions go, it was as no nonsense as you can get. Whether you agree with Carney or not, and there are plenty who don't, he has sent out a message that he will be a strong and decisive Governor. That alone would have been a good enough message to communicate. Loyalty may win the day at Royal Mail It is hard to disagree with business minister Michael Fallon's reaction to the 8.6pc pay offer made earlier this week to 125,000 postal workers. "It looks pretty reasonable compared to the 1pc a year cap for nurses, teachers and the armed forces," he told The Daily Telegraph. On hospital wards and in classooms and barracks up and down the land he would probably find plenty of common ground. To the Communication Workers Union, which has rejected the three-year pay deal and threatened industrial action over the isue, it looks very different. Where Mr Fallon sees a generous offer which will leave other public sector workers green with envy, union leaders spy a trap - a dastardly underhand attempt to strip their members of job security, rip up their pension rights and impose a no-strike agreement. That is the line they will take for public consumption at any rate. But, behind the scenes, we may find they are taking a more emollient approach. "Watch their feet, not their mouths," advises one senior Royal Mail figure. For all the CWU's megaphone negotiating and assiduous PR skills, the Treasury has a trump card to play: the size of the stake in a privatised business which it can decide to hand to postal workers. Under the terms of the Postal Services Act, they are guaranteed a minimum 10pc equity once the Government relinquishes its stake. In the past, postal workers have rightly attracted criticism for engaging in old-style Spanish practices but industrial relations have improved under the watch of chief executive Moya Greene. Moreover, many in the workforce have a deep-seated loyalty to the institution they serve and take great pride in what they do. The idea of a stake in the business may prove more enticing than the prospect of a drawn-out industrial dispute which, deep down, they know could prove terminal to the Royal Mail. Figures really point to depth of housing crisis The latest trading updates from Britain's biggest housebuilders have stuck to the familiar narrative of rising margins and record profits. House price data, meanwhile, tells us that prices are up 3.7pc on the year. Still, as chatter about the threat of a "bubble" rises, it is useful to remember that the less volatile price data points to property prices that are only keeping up with inflation - in other words, prices have merely stopped falling in real terms. What the headlines reflect is more the depth of the housing crisis, than the heat of today's market.