Much as it pains me to say so, on one issue at least El Gordo deserves praise:
To give Gordon Brown credit where credit’s due, his instinctive hostility to the euro has paid dividends. Had we been party to the ECB’s interest rates, our credit bubble would have been larger and we would now be in an even more parlous state.
To paraphrase, if we’d joined we’d be even more fucked than we are now.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Serf // May 20, 2008 at 10:16 am
Right decision for wrong reason.
Gordo wants to be in charge.
However, methinks that we might have gone in anyway had His Tonyness not promised a referendum. (The Euro has an obviously physical presence, which the constitution lacks).
2 Matthew // May 20, 2008 at 12:33 pm
“The single currency’s one-size-fits-all approach is especially unfit for the current, turbulent circumstances”
That’s a highly debatable statement. The 17 members of the Eurozone are benefitting greatly from the stability a single currency and interest rate has given them. There may be -and are – other issues, but to completely ignore this is perverse.
3 Stephen // May 20, 2008 at 1:03 pm
But are they? A strong euro is not the same as a healthy economy.
4 MARK T // May 20, 2008 at 1:33 pm
most important, the Irish and Spanish economies show the positive (and now negtive) effect on household cash flow from large balance sheets funded on floating rate mortgages. Had we been in the eurozone we would have had a bigger boom, but with rates at 4% not 5% less of a bust. The downside that the ECB are sado-monetarists no longer exists now the BoE are too. The real problem for the UK – and by extension Gordon- was the increase in rates last year on spurious econmoic data predicting an inflationary boom in the UK which hit household cashflow just as Gordo was raising taxes everywhere else.
5 Ed // May 20, 2008 at 3:37 pm
spurious econmoic data predicting an inflationary boom in the UK
We don’t seem to be getting the boom, but I think the inflation is real enough.
increase in rates last year … which hit household cashflow
Only in households which have debts.
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