However, the financial crisis of 2007–08 ended this period of stability, and, on 16 April 2007, the governor (at that time Mervyn King), was obliged to write the first MPC open letter to the chancellor (Gordon Brown), explaining why the inflation had deviated from the target of 2% per year by more than one percentage point (3.1%). By February 2013, he had had to write 14 such letters to chancellors. Between October 2008 and March 2009 the base rate was cut six times to an all-time low of 0.5% in order to avoid deflation and spur growth. In March 2009, the MPC launched a programme of quantitative easing, initially injecting £75 billion into the economy. By March 2010, it had also increased the amount of money set aside for quantitative easing to £200 billion, a figure later increased by a further £75 billion in the months following October 2011. The MPC announced two further £50 billion rounds of quantitative easing in February and July 2012, bringing the total to £375 billion whilst simultaneously keeping the base rate at 0.5%. In March 2013, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, called on the MPC to follow its American counterpart (the Federal Reserve Board) in committing itself to keeping interest rates low for a prolonged period of time via appropriate forward guidance, which it did on 7 August.