Bank of England vote on stimulus still strongly no

(AP) Minutes of the Bank of England's latest rate-setting meeting continue to show little enthusiasm for injecting more money into the economy, but the Bank's governor says it is prepared to do more if necessary.

Minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee's January meeting released Wednesday showed there was again an 8-1 vote to hold the asset purchase, or quantitative easing, program at 375 billion pounds ($595 billion). David Miles again was the only advocate for further stimulus.

In a speech on Tuesday, Governor Mervyn King said, Be in no doubt that we are ready to provide more stimulus if it is needed.

Meanwhile, official statistics showed that U.K. unemployment eased to 7.7 percent in the September-November period, down from 7.8 percent in the previous three months.