Mervyn King's economic inspirations

Sir Mervyn King has given only three extended television interviews since becoming Governor of the Bank of England in 2003.

He studied at John Maynard Keynes' old college in Cambridge in the 1960s - a time when "Keynesian" economics was in the ascendant, but about to come under attack from monetarist economists such as Milton Friedman.

Sir Mervyn gave the BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders an extended interview in February 2012 for the BBC 2 programme Masters of Money, a documentary series about the lives and economic thinking of Keynes, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Marx.

In this interview Sir Mervyn comments on each man's contribution to economic history and the relevance of their ideas to recent events.

He also says that the last few years have given him a deeper understanding of some of Keynes' writing about the 1930s.

Before the financial crisis of 2008, Sir Mervyn says, he had struggled to comprehend how policy makers had allowed the economic disasters of the interwar years to take place - now he understands all too well.