It seemed a bit surreal on Sunday to hear that Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, was to be the next prime minister of Canada.

When I interviewed Mr Carney at the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland’s Ingliston House back in September 2016, the thought certainly did not cross my mind that the then head of the UK central bank would within a decade be the leader of one of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.

Of course, at that stage there was no sign that the then president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, would go on to become the prime minister of Italy in February 2021, a role from which he exited the following year.

Now Mr Carney finds himself at the head of a country targeted by Donald Trump in the US president’s escalating trade war.

And it was heartening to hear Mr Carney, who was governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, take a very firm line indeed on the Trump situation following his victory in the contest to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister. But more of that later.

Mr Carney, in his early years as Bank of England governor, did not particularly attract controversy.

He was a calm hand on the tiller, who appeared content not to become involved in political issues and indeed often seemed at pains to avoid any danger of straying into this territory as he went about the business of running the independent Bank of England.

By the time of the September 2016 interview, however, he was content to talk in detail about the economic impact of Brexit.

It should be emphasised that this was his job.

Brexit was at that stage probably the biggest political issue, as well as a huge economic one, and nearly nine years later it remains a very big deal. It was incumbent on Mr Carney as Bank of England governor to talk about the effects of Brexit, given the major impact on........

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