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The quantitative easing programme is being scaled down and may well have reached its limit. Remember, you read it here first.

It is not often I am right and all the other economists and financial commentators are wrong so please allow me a fair dose of smugness on this occasion. Already the experts are coming round to what I argued in this column four months ago, that the Bank of England money printing scheme would peak at £200 billion.

Let us have a quick recap. The Bank of England was originally granted up to £150 billion to spend on buying government and company bonds in order to mop up government debt and to get the economy going.

Back in July, after £125 billion had been dispensed, the bank asked the government for permission to raise the ceiling to £175 billion. And here the confusion began. Columnists were leaping up and down about ‘an extra £50 billion’. That was wrong, as I pointed out. It was an extra £25 billion (plus the remaining £25 billion already included in the original figure).

To muddy the waters further, it transpired that Governor Mervyn King did in fact want an extra £50 billion (taking the total to £200 billion). This again was misconstrued. Those headlines saying King wanted another £75 billion and had got £50 billion should have said King’s extra £50 billion had been chopped in half by his own colleagues.

The difference, as I argued all along, was important. Commentators talking about the higher figures were easily able to persuade themselves to think in terms of yet higher figures, so the assumption grew that King would soon persuade his fellow members of the monetary policy committee to go above £200 billion.

However, the real situation was that MPC members had dragged their feet over King’s extra £50 billion and that a compromise was likely: King would eventually get his full £50 billion but no more. Faces saved all round.

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