The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, opposed this month's decision by the Monetary Policy Committee to cut interest rates to 4.5 per cent.
Mr King and three other top officials, deputy governors Rachel Lomax and Andrew Large and executive director Paul Tucker, voted against the nine-strong committee's decision, saying it was thought it too early to conclude inflationary pressures had abated.
This was the first time the governor had been in a minority since the MPC was set up in 1997. The BoE said today after minutes of the meeting were released that King and his predecessor Eddie George had made clear they would be willing to do this.
Analysts had predicted that only one committee member would have voted against the cut. The four officials were outvoted by the remaining five members including BoE chief economist Charles Bean who thought not cutting rates in August would have damaged confidence and early action could prevent the need for bigger moves later.
King and others argued that it was too early to conclude inflationary pressures had abated and there was little risk in waiting for more data before taking action. "While a decision not to cut rates would not be a significant surprise, the Committee's latest projections did not support the current market view that a sequence of interest rate cuts was likely to be needed to meet the inflation target in the medium term," said those members against a cut.
Those in favour also did not exclude the possibility that a cut in August might have to be reversed but said the next move in rates could be either up or down.
After the minutes were published the pound rose to its highest level since July 7 on the euro and gained against the dollar, while government bonds fell.