BoE's Bailey (Q&A) says the biggest influence on the Gilt market recently has been the Middle East and energy fluctuations (when asked about the risk of not giving explicit forward guidance)

• Lombardelli emphasises the uncertainty around the projections and recent signs that economic activity is "a bit more resilient than expected", but that the "underlying trend is one of weakness". 

Bailey framing Gilt price action as a function of Middle East energy risk rather than domestic guidance is a familiar move by central bankers seeking to de-emphasise their own communication as the marginal driver of the curve. In past episodes of this kind, when a supply or geopolitical shock dominates the inflation narrative, central banks have tended to retreat from explicit forward guidance, arguing that the reaction function matters more than the path language, and Bailey's comment sits squarely in that tradition. The distinction worth drawing is between guidance on policy and guidance on the shock: where energy is the driver, the transmission runs through imported inflation expectations at the belly and long end of the Gilt curve rather than through the Bank Rate path, and the short end's anchoring becomes a weaker signal of committee intent. Lombardelli's pairing of resilient activity with a weak underlying trend is the standard two-handed formulation officials use to keep both directions of the next decision live, and the next inflation and wage prints carry elevated weight under that framing. The follow-ons are whether other MPC members echo the external-shock attribution and whether the committee's projections commentary shifts toward wider uncertainty bands around the energy assumption. As Q&A commentary rather than a decision, the signal is directional on communication style, not on timing.