Interest rates in the UK were held on Thursday, with the QE programme also held at £375bn. The decision to keep rates on hold was one that has not come out of the blue. Previously, Mark Carney has spoken about potential hikes towards the back end of 2014 at the earliest but it would be no surprise if the first rate change was in Q1 2015, either way any initial rate hikes are likely to be both small and gradual. Interest rates have been at 0.5% since March 2009.One side of the coin is that …