Whether they like it or not, central bankers are being dragged into the political fray. It is not so much an issue of whether independence is good or bad. Rather, monetary policy itself is no longer a job for technocrats.

Pre-crisis, it was assumed the achievement of price stability would keep everybody happy. Yes, central bankers would have to nudge interest rates in one direction or the other, making some of us better off and others worse off. Across an economic cycle, however, these effects would even out. In that sense, monetary policy could be regarded as politically neutral.

No longer. Since the recession, developed world economies have stagnated and central bankers have had little choice but to keep rates close to zero and to pursue increasingly unconventional monetary policies in the hope that they will trigger a robust recovery.