The chairman of the BoE’s board of directors expressed unease that King had made comments on fiscal policy that were open to a partisan political interpretation.

David Lees, who chairs the BoE’s Court of Directors and oversees its Monetary Policy Committee, was asked by a parliamentary committee about a speech King gave in January in which he endorsed the government’s fiscal course.

“I’m not terribly comfortable with that because that’s moving away from the general to the particular,” said Court chairman David Lees, who otherwise said he was happy with King’s remarks on the need for fiscal tightening.

But Brendan Barber, who heads Britain’s umbrella trade union body as well as sitting on the BoE’s Court, put the blame on the coalition for misrepresenting King’s remarks.

“They sought to present his remarks as an endorsement of (their) strategy. I think that was very unfortunate and did risk getting the bank drawn in in an unhelpful way in what is a very political debate,” Barber said. “I didn’t see (King’s remarks) as a significant variation from his earlier comments.”

The opposition Labour Party has occasionally criticized King for compromising the BoE’s independence by apparently endorsing the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s budget plans. King says that fiscal consolidation is necessary — a view shared by all major UK parties — but that he is neutral on whether taxes are raised or spending cut to reduce Britain’s budget deficit.

Legislators criticized the Court of Directors for not taking a greater interest in the risk of the BoE getting politicized in the debate about how to reduce the budget deficit.

Asked what action the Court could take if it felt Governor King had compromised the Bank’s independence, Lees said he would have a “very serious conversation” with King but stopped short of saying whether he would publicly call for King to go.

Another Court member said the BoE could have publicized risks to the banking sector more vigorously in the run-up to the financial crisis, although it may not have made any difference.

“In terms of what it could have done in the run-up to the crisis, it may have been able to have shouted louder. Whether people would have listened is questionable,” said Roger Carr, a member of the BoE’s Court of Directors since June 2007.