Sterling 1, Scunthorpe 0
THE Prime Minister has enough on his plate, and I do not think that he need worry about sterling. It would worry him, he was saying this week, if the pound were outra- geously strong. That is about as likely as Manchester City winning the champi- onship. Both these great names from the past have been slipping down the tables for years, and if City has now fallen far enough to scrape a win against Scunthorpe Reserves, that does not make it strong: out- rageous, perhaps, as its two remaining sup- porters (the other one is Deputy Governor of the Bank of England) would agree. The pound, too, has had a few weeks' run and improved on its modest position — to cheers from the stands? Not a bit of it. To moans that British exports and British man- ufacture will be crippled by this new strong pound: a splendid new excuse for company chairmen needing scapegoats to put in their statements. Strength, though, is relative. There was a time when a strong pound was a gold sovereign, but we are off that stan- dard now, and even since the 1960s the pound has lost nine-tenths of its value against gold. Against the Premier League currencies it has simply been relegated. Now it has picked up a place or two, with the markets anticipating higher interest rates. In some lights it looks a more attrac- tive currency than the prospective Euro- mishmash now on offer, incorporating, as this would, the peseta, the lira and other third-division currencies. The Prime Minis- ter might care to say so.
Previous page
