The lowest interest rates in the Bank of England's 315-year history will widen the growing and increasingly fractious divide between the nation's borrowers and savers.

Britain's army of savers, many of them pensioners, have watched in despair as rates on deposit accounts have fallen like a stone.

At the start of October, when the base rate was at 5 per cent, you could lock into accounts paying an impressive 7 per cent in interest. Now more than a third of savings accounts for deposits of £5,000 pay interest of 1 per cent or less. And banks and building societies will jump at the chance to shave rates again, if, as expected, the base rate falls today.

There are still some good savings deals, but they are disappearing fast. Anglo Irish Bank cut the interest rates on its one-year fixed rate bond to 4.6 per cent yesterday, in expectation of a base-rate cut today. You can still get 5.1 per cent fixed for one year at ICICI bank and 5 per cent fixed for two years with Close Brothers if you have savings of at least £10,000.

Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that there is rising anger among prudent savers who feel that they are the innocent victims of the economic crunch: a mood that the Conservatives are trying to exploit with their promise to abolish tax on savings for basic rate taxpayers.

In many savers' eyes, borrowers are seen as the spendthrift cousins, profiting from their misfortune. The truth is not so simple.

About 4.2 million mortgage borrowers who have base-rate tracker loans will be celebrating. Their mortgage costs are guaranteed to drop in line with the base rate.

The typical monthly repayment on a £150,000 tracker loan is about £375 lower than in October last year. If, as expected, the base rate drops another half a point to 1.5 per cent today, monthly repayments on a £150,000 loan will fall by another £62.50. However, Nationwide and some other lenders have refused to lower their tracker rates any further.

Most borrowers with mortgages linked to variable rates are also unlikely to see any change in the interest they pay. Only Lloyds TSB and Nationwide have pledged to pass on today's interest-rate cut in full to borrowers on mortgages linked to their standard variable rate. Few of their rivals are likely to follow, as they attempt to balance the needs of savers who are feeling short-changed.

If you are tempted to try switching to a cheaper loan the expense of exit fees, application and legal costs mean it will rarely be worthwhile. Lenders are fussier about who they accept as new customers, with a 40 per cent deposit needed to get your hands on most of the cheapest deals. If your face, or rather your finances, don't fit you will be turned away at the door.

For most savers and borrowers, therefore, yet another cut in interest rates will leave them no better off.