The Bank of England has put more emergency medicine for the UK economy on hold, despite more evidence that the recovery is grinding to a halt.
Interest rates were kept at a record low of 0.5% while the Bank's quantitative easing (QE) programme remained at £275 billion following the increase of £75 billion in October.
The Bank has already acknowledged that it will take until February to administer the recent expansion in its QE programme. Economists expect a further £50 billion of QE from the Bank of England in both the first and second quarters of 2012, taking the total up to £375 billion.
While the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee was forced to sit on its hands, counterparts at the European Central Bank (ECB) were mulling whether to slash rates from 1.25%.
Even in the last financial crisis, the ECB's rate never went below 1%, where it stood for two years until April this year.
After raising rates twice earlier this year under former president Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB cut rates at new president Mario Draghi's first meeting last month, fuelling expectations that Europe's debt crisis will prompt more cuts.
The crisis in the eurozone - which the Bank of England cited as one of the key threats to the UK recovery - continues to escalate as EU leaders are yet to deliver a concrete plan to resolve the region's problems.
The latest snapshot of the UK economy has made for gloomy reading, with influential think-tank NIESR estimating that growth slowed again in the three months to November to 0.3%, from 0.4% in the three months to October.
And official figures on Wednesday showed a larger-than-expected 0.7% contraction in industrial production and manufacturing in October, further fuelling fears of a double-dip recession.
It followed warnings from Bank Governor Sir Mervyn King that the UK faces a "systemic crisis" and that banks should brace themselves for a potential eurozone collapse amid fears of a second credit crunch.