An ecu each way
AS FOR inflation, we shall still try to tackle it through the exchange rate, by signing up for full membership of the
European Monetary System. You do not have to be an enthusiast for this policy, any more than I am, but there is no reason to say that the Gulf crisis has set it back — except by demonstrating what European unity means when push comes to shove: 12 countries with 13 different ideas of self- interest. (The 13th is the Commission's.) I am tickled to see an ante-post market opening up, with bets on the date of our entry. There is money for September, and Philip Stephens in the Financial Times has, by a process of haruspication in ministers' diaries, come up with 8 September. My each-way ecu, just for fun, is on the first week in October — for three reasons. It is the week after the International Monetary Fund meeting, the week before the Con- servative party conference — and the week of the Labour conference.
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