It is more than 10 years since the Bank of England last raised interest rates. With almost laughably inept timing, bank rate was increased in July 2007 to what by today’s standards is an almost unimaginable 5.75 per cent.

Yet the rate hike was into the teeth of the biggest financial crisis in history. Pretty soon afterwards, rates began to tumble, and within two years they had been cut all the way down to 0.5 per cent.

At the time, few if any imagined that nearly a decade later they would still be at rock bottom. The policy was also generally thought of as a success, part of a panoply of measures that had saved the West from a repeat of the Great Depression, when unemployment had soared and Europe hit the self-destruct button. Hardly anyone thought it would become a permanent state of affairs. Yet here we are, all these years later, and ultra-low interest rates are just another familiar and natural part of the economic landscape.

As the first rate rise in so long, Thursday’s 0.25 percentage point increase did at least have novelty value, but otherwise it was of little significance. All it does is reverse the emergency cut that took place at the time of the referendum. In announcing an increase that two members of the Monetary Policy Committee in any case opposed, the Bank also made it plain that any future increases would be “limited and gradual”.