Well, as the Good Book says, there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. And joy here too, as I find that Ken Clarke now agrees with the view of the euro I have held for nearly a decade.

I've cut this article from today's 'Daily Telegraph' due to its length:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was wrong to back the Euro, says Clarke
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Toby Helm
(Filed: 23/08/2005)

Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, has branded the euro 'a failure' in an apparent attempt to win the support of Conservative eurosceptics in his push forthe Tory leadership.

Mr Clarke, a strong pro-European, also exhorted Brussels to forget about the EU Constitution, which has been shelved after 'No' votes in France and the Netherlands.

In an interview with the journal Central Banking, Mr Clarke, previously a strong backer of the euro, said the single currency had not proved to be the catalyst for economic reform and higher growth promised by its supporters.

Admitting that he had overestimated its capacity to strengthen the European economy, he said: "I thought it would lead to increased productivity, efficiency and living standards and stimulate policy reforms. On that front so far it has been a failure".

He described the constitution as 'effectively dead', saying that it was pointless trying to push for closer integration unless public opinion across Europe demanded it.

[PORTIONS SNIPPED]

Mr Clarke said the euro zone's 'one-size fits all' interest rates were causing severe strains in Europe's southern tier, where states had let rip on spending and failed to adapt to the rigours of the system.

"I am beginning to worry considerably about where Italy is going", he said. "The Italian government is utterly oblivious of the need to retain some reasonable fiscal discipline. It is still running a kind of family capitalism without paying any heed to the level of wages or other costs".

[MORE SNIPPED]



Despite his long-standing passion for the euro, he said the conditions had never been ripe for British entry. I do not think there has ever been a time when the British could have joined with complete security and confidence. I doubt it is possible for 10 years or more".

[REST SNIPPED]

For some reason the heading (message subject) of this post reminds me of a 70's song that has the chorus "I wanna be elected. Electeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed" etc).


Don't know what the song is or who it's by (it's a tad "before my time").

My guess is that it's called "Elected" or "I wanna be (Elected)" etc.

Yesterday,

I thought we'd scrap the pound any day

Now it looks as though it's here to stay

Oh I believe

In.. er,

Tomorrow!

England may never join, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will after they are admitted to the EU as independent nations.

re (Daniel Jackson): "...after they are admitted to the EU as independent nations".

REPLY: About as classic an example of an oxymoron as you coud possibly wish for

Tony,

With respect - why do you bother answering posts like that which will already glaringly show to all other posters the amount of knowledge Danny has on the subject in question?

Let others laugh or cringe at his "excellent work".

I doubt he could even point out England on a map - let alone the USA.

re (SteveH): "Tony, With respect - why do you bother answering posts like that which will already glaringly show to all other posters the amount of knowledge Danny has on the subject in question?"

REPLY: I thought that there was at least a faint chance that he would get out a dictionary and look up the word 'oxymoron'

Steve

Elected - was it Alice Cooper??????

Tony

(From Sgt Pepper - side 1) "Lovely Rita, I'd love to metre"

:-) :-) :-)

Danny

I would suggest that your ideas regarding countries that may wish to leave the UK might be left to the citizens of these countries?

And Tony

(Nothing to do with the Euro, but remember that I have accused you of adding words to (or making up!) previous "so-called" quotations)

Did Clarke actually say "I was wrong to back the failing euro"

Or did you make it up again?

Please post some confirmation that he actually made this quote.

Or just put it into a new CMS report, then challenge doubters to prove that he didn't ever say it!

<<I would suggest that your ideas regarding countries that may wish to leave the UK might be left to the citizens of these countries?
>>

I see the country as "The UK". I see it as a son/daughter who is toying with the idea of leaving the home rather than that son or daughter being a stranger in a home he never grew up in.

But I'm all for debate within the nations that make up the UK.

Why shouldn't someone change their mind about the euro? I know I have changed my mind several times.

Some people actually think about it in terms of whether it would be good for the country, or not.

Others are blinded by their prejudices and make their judgement on purely emotional reasons

Beranger, this is verbatim from the 'Daily Telegraph' report yesterday.

I take it you're happy with that, or do you want to start on a course of hair-splitting? I could easily have said 'failed' euro on the basis of the 'Telegraph' report, but erred on the side of caution in my headline:

"I was wrong to back the Euro", says Clarke
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Toby Helm
(Filed: 23/08/2005)

Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, has branded the euro 'a failure'..."


P.S. I believe that as well as Mr Clarke having got it wrong about the euro for 10 years, until there was a Conservative Party election, he has also made a lot of money by advising the tobacco lobby on how to get more and more people to smoke themselves to an early death. No wonder Conservative Party members voted for Iain Duncan-Smith rather than him in 2001

<<I know I have changed my mind several times>>

Could that not be seen as short-termism?

Sometimes a gut instinct is better than the current thinking og "what is best for my country".

The issue of collective short-termism can lead to disasterous things - like Nazi Germany, I guess.

Once upon a time there were three little pigs and the time came for them to leave home and seek their fortunes.

Before they left, their mother told them " Whatever you do , do it the best that you can because that's the way to get along in the world.


The first little pig built his house out of straw because it was the easiest thing to do.

The second little pig built his house out of sticks. This was a little bit stronger than a straw house.

The third little pig built his house out of bricks.

One night the big bad wolf, who dearly loved to eat fat little piggies, came along and saw the first little pig in his house of straw. He said "Let me in, Let me in, little pig or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!"

"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin", said the little pig.

But of course the wolf did blow the house in and ate the first little pig.

The wolf then came to the house of sticks.

"Let me in ,Let me in little pig or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in" "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin", said the little pig. But the wolf blew that house in too, and ate the second little pig.

The wolf then came to the house of bricks.

" Let me in , let me in" cried the wolf

"Or I'll huff and I'll puff till I blow your house in"

"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin" said the pigs.

Well, the wolf huffed and puffed but he could not blow down that brick house.

But the wolf was a sly old wolf and he climbed up on the roof to look for a way into the brick house.




The little pig saw the wolf climb up on the roof and lit a roaring fire in the fireplace and placed on it a large kettle of water.

When the wolf finally found the hole in the chimney he crawled down and KERSPLASH right into that kettle of water and that was the end of his troubles with the big bad wolf.

The next day the little pig invited his mother over . She said "You see it is just as I told you. The way to get along in the world is to do things as well as you can." Fortunately for that little pig, he learned that lesson. And he just lived happily ever after!

I'm starting to enjoy this site more and more with each read :-D

TB
Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, has branded the euro 'a failure'


metre
And Europeans are trembling, wow.

Not in the eurozone nor those countries whose currencies are pegged solidly to the euro.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currencies_related_to_the_euro


The only people worried are the pound defenders. They keep hoping for a euro crash (which will NEVER happen), so that the pound can possibly obtain a slim chance of filling the coveted #2 spot in the currency markets, behind the dollar and ahead of the Yen. The spot the euro occupies now.

Even for the pound to maintain the place it has, somewhere mixed in with the commonwealth dollars the swiss franc and others, the British economy has to endure stifling high interest rates which are causing a crash in the hyperinflated housing market and a severe recession and increasing unemployment in the manufacturing industries. The unemployments rates are still holding low because the people fired from their high paying jobs are finding work in the low wage, no benefit companies, and even if they make less they don't count as an unemployment statistic.

Anatole Kaletsky in today's 'Times' [cut due to length]:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 25, 2005
A hard truth: the future of the single currency is now far beyond our Ken - by Anatole Kaletsky

THERE WAS a time when Kenneth Clarke’s admission that “the euro has been a failure” [Beranger please note - 'a failure', not just 'failing'] might have dominated the headlines for weeks. It might even have changed the course of Britain’s history. Had Mr Clarke been prescient enough 15 years ago to recognise the fatal flaws in the single currency project, the Tories might have been spared the humiliation of Black Wednesday and the suicidal infighting over the Maastricht treaty; they might still be governing the country.

If the ex-Chancellor had humbly admitted five years ago that he had been wrong about the euro, he would surely now be the Leader of the Opposition and the Conservatives might be vying for power with Labour in a hung parliament.

By this week, however, Mr Clarke’s public confession about the failure of the euro was as irrelevant to the future as Macbeth’s final soliloquy comparing himself to “a walking shadow, a poor player who that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”.

[SNIPPED]

While the Europe’s economic performance has gone from bad to worse almost since the day when the euro was launched in January 1999, no respectable politician has ever dared to blame the euro or criticise the single currency project in any way. This taboo has now been lifted.

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has consciously encouraged an anti-euro movement, designed to blame Italy’s problems on Romano Prodi, the man who took Italy into the single currency, who happens to be his main political opponent in the forthcoming general elections. In the Netherlands, France and Germany, the euro has started to be blamed for inflation, economic instability and unemployment.

[SNIPPED]

Why does all this matter? Because the euro, like any other paper currency, is just an illusion; its power to command people’s lives and motivate effort depends entirely on a suspension of disbelief. People must not only think that these elaborately printed but worthless bits of paper will be exchangeable for valuable goods and services. They must also believe that their intrinsically worthless paper money will continue to be honoured for the indefinite future by the whole world. That belief, in turn, rests ultimately on the faith that the value of paper money will be upheld by a government with the right and the ability to levy taxes on a wealthy nation.

But if the EU is not going to evolve towards a full-scale political union who exactly is going to guarantee the value of the euro? And if the membership of the eurozone is never even going to be equivalent to membership of the EU, with Britain, Sweden, Denmark and other EU countries remaining outside, then why should a government, whether it is Italy or Germany, that finds it inconvenient to use the euro not simply opt out and re-create its own national currency?

The sudden emergence of questions such as this does not necessarily mean that the eurozone will fall apart or even that the euro will completely cease to exist, but it does mean that such possibilities may soon be seriously considered. And if investors ever start to worry about the long-term viability of the single currency project, scenarios for the total collapse of the euro will suddenly come into view.

The most plausible such scenario is Italy withdrawing from the euro, under pressure from mounting unemployment, a weak economy and imploding public finances, exactly the same combination of pressures that forced Italy out of the ERM in 1992. If the possibility of Italian withdrawal were ever taken seriously by the markets, foreign holders of Italy’s 1,500 billion euro public debt would face enormous losses, since the Italian Government would simply convert its bonds into “new lire” and would legally get away with this conversion.

In fact, such are the financial risks of Italian withdrawal to the European financial system, that the Italian Government may now be in a position to blackmail the European Central Bank into reducing interest rates and devaluing the euro simply by threatening to withdraw.

[SNIPPED]

If the ECB were seen as capitulating to Italian blackmail, the euro’s survival would face a new and even more serious threat: a collapse of public confidence in Germany and the Netherlands, where populist politicians would start blaming their countries’ economic problems on the weakness of the ECB.

A break-up of the euro seems highly improbable in the next year or two. But anybody who still believes that such a break-up is impossible should bear in mind the lessons from the break-up of the ERM, the sterling, franc and lira devaluations of the 1960s, the collapse of the dollar-based Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s and the pre-war abandonment of the gold standard.

[REST SNIPPED]

Tony

Perhaps you think I am splitting hairs, but I feel that you would be the first to complain if I added one punctuation mark to any quotation of yours! :-)

To my mind, something in quotation marks has actually been said by the person quoted.

I would not have said a word had you titled the post <<Ken Clarke admits he was wrong to back the failing euro>>

Beranger,

I accept your somewhat 'purist' point. This is how the Telegraph headline reported it, admittedly without quotation marks:

-----------------------------------------

I was wrong to back the Euro, says Clarke

-----------------------------------------

If you read the full article closley, my headline did not in any way misrepresent the expressed views of tobacco magnate Clarke

WHAT A DIFFERENCE 5 YEARS MAKES: KEN CLARKE IN FEBRUARY 2000 (cut due to length):

February 2000:

KENNETH CLARKE, the former Chancellor, yesterday delivered a blunt warning to Tony Blair that being 'indecisive' on the single currency could damage Britain's economic standing in the world.

In a speech which was implicity critical of the Government's reluctance to make the case for scrapping the pound, Mr Clarke said failing to join the euro would mean Britain settling for 'second best'. In what will be seen as a swipe at Mr Blair's caution on the euro, he said: "I am an old fashioned politician. I have never allowed focus groups to form my opinions."

Although Mr Clarke has faced criticism from Tories...for joining Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians in the Britain in Europe campaign, he made clear he intended to continue arguing the case for Britain to sign up to the euro when the economic conditions were right.

[SNIPPED]

Mr Clarke said there was no doubt in his mind that Britain in Europe was launched "for the purpose of preparing public opinion for the forthcoming referendum on our membership of the single currency". He acknowledged that it was necessary to make the case for Britain to be in the EU.

[SNIPPED]

"The real danger is if we stay out for too long we will settle for second rate performance compared with our competitors. We will accept a competitive disadvantage that is bound to follow from an over-strong currency and interest rates higher than our competitors."

So long as Britain was 'in the waiting room'*(1), it would have diminished influence. Already Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, was excluded from meetings of the finance ministers of the 11 euro zone countries, who were taking important decisions on the future of the single market.

Britain was also taking a chance on the 'roller coaster' of a floating exchange rate, which could have an impact on Japanese and American investors, who might prefer the currency stability of the euro zone countries*(2).


*(1) Just as well! The others got on the wrong train.

*(2) Well, it turns out that they didn't. Clarke was wrong, and the eurosceptics - yet again - proved right