The Told-you-so Club
HOW MANY people, starting with the Chancellor, now claim to have told you so! In this club, which was so exclusive for so long, all I can claim is to be a founder- member. When we joined the ERM, almost three years ago. I warned here that I feared the consequences: 'We have embarked on an attempt to rig the biggest market of all, the foreign exchanges. We must try to make our economy fit our exchange rate. The Governor of the Bank of England has been congratulating the ERM on avoiding change, which must now (he says) be regarded as the very last resort. Fixed rates are to economic management what Pro- crustes was to inn-keeping. They stretch or chop the customer to fit the framework. Some people even expect to enjoy it.' When, last September, Procrustes kicked us out of bed, my club acquired some associ- ate members. There was nothing wrong with the ERM, they said, only with the Brits, who had gone in at the wrong rate, or mishandled the markets, or failed to butter up the Germans. Even the best butter, as the French have now found, will not wind up the watch on the Rhine.
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