The UK's QE is to all intents and purposes an interest-free overdraft at the Bank of England's option  - or rather it would be interest-free if interest were not paid on bank reserves - extended by private banks to the Treasury via the Bank of England as the Treasury's agent.

Retiring QE drains credit/money out of the system, and requires both government income - eg from tax receipts or asset sales - and a policy decision by the Bank of England.

It is true that governments do not print, although they can eg the United States Notes long since subsumed by Federal Reserve Notes.

You and I can 'print' of course.

If I issue an IOU to you in return for value received, and you are able (unlikely though it may be) to have that IOU accepted by someone else, in exchange for value received by you from him, then the result is a monetary system which requires an abstract value standard/ unit of measure for the transactions, but not fiat currency.


"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson