It is not interest rates that are deterring investment. It is the lack of demand. Without people buying the goods why do manufacturers need to invest if they can meet existing demand with in current capital supply?

Because businesses invest based on all sorts of things other than current demand. Even if you can satisfy your current client base with exactly what you already have, that does not mean it is a mistake to purchase a new inventory management system, upgrade your finance software or develop a new product. Interest rate concerns do affect such decisions.

It's also the banks. The terms now being offered to SME's are simply not viable. Post-crash, the banks have basically gone from accepting any risk to accepting no risk. The only way you can get finance from a bank at any reasonable rate if you're a small business is to prove you don't actually need it in the first place.

And yes, QE and all that. The couple of people I know who run businesses say it's made absolutely naff all difference at their level.

If you ask somebody to do two things, it is unwise for those two things to be contradictory. We are demanding that banks hold more capital to underpin their loan books, and that they should lend more. Of course they aren't going to lend more. We've told them that they must, and that they can't.

As long as they're still low in October 14 when I remortgage.