As part of its new £60 billion ($77 billion) programme of quantitative easing—printing money to buy bonds—the Bank of England will today try to buy long-dated gilts. Its attempt to do so last week did not go entirely smoothly. Trading was sluggish; investors offered to sell slightly fewer bonds to the bank than it had hoped to buy. Bank-bashers took pleasure in saying that QE was “failing”. But that is an overstatement. In recent days the bank has had no trouble buying shorter-duration gilts (where the market is more liquid). And in light of last week’s events, investors will be expecting a high price today for their long-dated bonds; expect more sellers this time around. All this bond-buying has forced yields on government debt to record lows, encouraging investors to plump for riskier assets—which is the whole point of QE. Rather than failing, Britain’s QE programme is meeting its objectives.