It looks like Mr Carney wasn’t happy with his Mansion House cable pop being eradicated so he decided to pump it back up again.

The big part of the weekend interview was that wages aren’t going to be a precursor for rate hikes. While that alone was enough to see the pound gap up the real meaning is perhaps a lot more worrying.

“We have to have the confidence that prospective real wages are going to be growing sustainably – we don’t have to wait for the fact of that turn to raise them”

Basically the BOE is running on hope rather than hard fact and that’s not a good plan. If there’s one thing we learn constantly in trading it’s that “hope” isn’t a strategy.

It also signifies that Mr Carney is prepared to throw some UK lambs to the slaughter with rate rises before they’ve had a chance to see wages rise. He may feel that it’s ok to sacrifice a potentially sizeable chunk of the population to help the UK overall, but I think he’s underestimating the problem and the effect it will have on the economy.

But why will it have a big effect? Simply put it will be the lack of basic financial knowledge in a large number of the population that will see them get crunched when rates rise. There’s shouldn’t be a man, woman or dog with a mortgage who shouldn’t be aware that rates are going up, as Carney notes;

“People might have different views on the exact timing, but it will happen and people should plan accordingly”

That’s going to be the flaw in his plan. Yes the rules are changing and will make it difficult for people to change mortgages but difficult doesn’t mean impossible. It’s people’s inaction that is going to cause them pain.

The odds are in his favour that we do see a pick up in wages but the timescale is the issue. While we have decent jobs growth we are going to need to see the overall market pick up and that means an increase in prospects for people to change jobs and chase higher wages. That also involves firms being confident enough to offer higher wages for new and existing employees. We’ll only get that if companies see increases in business and profits. That’s something we are possibly seeing plateau at the moment.

The other issue that Carney is facing is that the UK press are not taking too kindly to his increasing changes in direction. The Telegraph today said that he is becoming a “showman who lacks consistency”. While he’s not likely to take much stock from the papers he would rather have them onside than against him. The UK press has fried bigger fish than him in the past.

So what does this mean for the pound?

Today’s price action says all it needs to. The market is back on rate watch and the comments have added a little bit of spice to the MPC minutes on Wednesday. After seeing the wage numbers last week I had pushed aside any hopes of seeing a change in voting this month, but that possibility has increased slightly now.

I’d put the chances of seeing a hawkish turn from the MPC at around 20-25% as I think they will want to see how large or small the expected slowdown is going to be over the next couple of months. If we get a decent pick up in economic activity then it’s going to ramp up the possibility of seeing members voting for raising rates.

I’m still looking to pick up cable based purely on MPC minutes going forward and I can see the market being disappointed on Wednesday, so I’m going to look to see if there’s any damage to the pound I can take advantage of. In the meantime though the data is going to be even more important as if we do see any real rise in wages the market is going to take that as a green light for rate hikes.