Speaking as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England in 2000, Mervyn King declared that “our ambition . . . is to be boring”. He meant that the management of the economy, and specifically the conduct of monetary policy, should become increasingly predictable. A stable economy, and a sustainable expansion of demand, would allow businesses and consumers to make longer-term plans.

Since becoming Governor of the Bank in 2003, Mr King has spectacularly failed to achieve that ambition. Last night he gave his first public speech about the economic conjuncture since the coordinated international cut in interest rates this month. He might reasonably have used the opportunity to reflect on this conundrum. Amid the first run on a British bank for more than a century, and the near-collapse of the Western financial system, Mr King’s tenure at Threadneedle Street has been far from boring. It has, however been inconspicuous – and that is an indictment of Mr King’s performance.

Financial crises have punctuated the history of capitalism. As a skilled academic economist, Mr King is highly familiar with that history and the debates concerning its causes. But when the economy endures such seismic shocks as the collapse of major banks, the freezing of the wholesale lending market, and the technical insolvency of large parts of the “shadow” banking system, financial markets require a sense of reassurance.

A decade ago, the Asian currency crisis and the default of Russia on its sovereign debt sparked panic. The impact on the global financial system would have been worse but for the decisiveness and palpable expertise of the main US policymakers, notably Larry Summers, then the Deputy Treasury Secretary.

In the credit crisis of 2007-08, Mr King has been hesitant where he has even been visible. His belated attempts at expounding the Bank’s role, notably in the rescue of Northern Rock, have conveyed querulousness at the perfomance of the Government more than calmness in a near-perfect financial storm. The most recent phase of the crisis has been the unexpected turn in political fortunes of Alistair Darling – widely credited with a well-designed plan to recapitalise the banking system – while Mr King remains a largely unappreciated figure.

These impressions are not entirely fair. Mr King was early and right in realising that the UK’s deposit insurance scheme was inadequate to the scale of the banking crisis implied by Northern Rock’s failure. He has been scrupulous in respecting the remit of the Financial Services Authority for banking supervision, and it is not his fault that the FSA’s expertise has been found wanting. Some months before Northern Rock’s problems became headline news, Mr King made a thoughtful speech in which he pointed to the divergence between asset price inflation and inflation in the price of goods and services. An attentive listener would have noted the risk that that gap might soon be closed either by a fall in asset prices or by a rise in inflation – or, as has in fact happened, both.

Yet the message during Mr King’s period of office has been too Delphic and muted. Decisions by central banks earlier in this decade to keep interest rates low appeared justifiable, given the shock of 9/11 and moderate rates of inflation (partly owing to the effect of cheap imports from China). Yet governments and central banks did too little, either by policy or by pronouncement, to constrain the resulting credit expansion. In the bull market of the late 1990s, Alan Greenspan spoke of “irrational exuberance”. No such telling phrase has crossed the lips of Mr King. What we have learnt is that being boring is no excuse for being invisible.