London pre-open: All eyes on BoE's Carney and Vlieghe

Against that backdrop, the Footsie is being called to start the session 27 points beneath Wednesday's closing mark of 6,162.49.

Of particular interest will be any references by the BoE as to how the MPC might react should Britons voting for Brexit.

Most market commentary seems to point towards the likely provision of significant additional liquidity for the financial system and perhaps even a reduction to Bank Rate to help offset the likely negative impact on economic activity that would result, especially in the short-term.

Over the past weekend, analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch told clients that one or two MPC members might even vote for a cut to Bank Rate as soon as today's meeting, given recent data point which suggest that the rate of growth in the UK's gross domestic product might near 'stall speed' as uncertainty takes its toll and firms hedge their bets, postponing decisions and husbanding liquidity.

Barclays also identified Gertjan Vlieghe as a possible candidate who might support such a move, but deemed it unlikely before the 23 June referendum.

However, in recent days some 'market chatter' appears to be suggesting the a hike might even be in store in a bid to prop up the value of sterling.

"Carney has a very tough job on his hands today in communicating the economic impacts of a Brexit and the implications for monetary policy while trying to remain neutral on the issue and avoid once again angering the exit campaign. Everything he says today will be heavily scrutinised and could trigger a lot of volatility in the pound and UK bond markets as markets try to get to grips with all the possible eventualities," Craig Erlam, Senior Market Analyst at Oanda said.

Wall Street indices registered sharp falls overnight led by retailers, highlighting recent lacklustre trends in consumer spend.

As of 07:15 BST the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Composite Index was 0.55% lower to 2,821.415.

Mondi reports large rise in profits

Underlying first quarter operating profits at paper manufacturer Mondi rose 14% year on year to €269m with strong contributions from consumer packaging, uncoated fine paper and South Africa Division offsetting the impact of lower selling prices in certain packaging paper segments and margin pressure in fibre packaging.

Full year pre-tax profits at telecoms group TalkTalk more than halved to £14m after last year's embarrassing cyber attack cost the company £42m. Revenue was up slightly to £1.83bn from £1.7bn. Exceptional items jumped to £88m from £30m including expenditure to limit the damage from the attack in October which saw the details of thousands of customers stolen.

In spite of a 13% decline in net advertising revenue in April, ITV said it expected it to be "broadly flat" for the first half of the year and for the group to deliver "good profit growth". Although NAR from the ITV 'family' of channels was down very slightly in the first quarter after a 13% decline in April, strong growth from ITV Studios programming meant total group revenue rose 14% to £755m in the three months to 31 March.

AstraZeneca was celebrating on Thursday, after the US Food and Drug Administration granted its investigational MEK ½ inhibitor, selumetinib, ‘Orphan Drug Designation’ for adjuvant treatment of patients with stage III or IV differentiated thyroid cancer. The FTSE 100 company said differentiated thyroid cancer is diagnosed in around 60,000 people in the US each year, with radioactive iodine (RAI) recommended for those with known or suspected metastases at diagnosis and those at a high risk of recurrence.