Thatcher right about the Euro

angrypirate

Can we at least agree on one thing? If 11 European leaders had listened to her in a meeeting in 1990, then a lot of countries would have been better off. She was a minority of 1, voting against 11, battling against the single European currency. With the benefit of hindsight, is it not blinding obvious that this is one very big thing she was right about.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidblair/100211333/the-euro-cheerleaders-howe-kinnock-ashdown-were-wrong-and-margaret-thatcher-was-right-time-to-admit-it/

StevieJ

And Brownie :T but strangely enough not her disciple Blair.

Thrugelmir

StevieJ wrote: »

And Brownie :T but strangely enough not her disciple Blair.

Blair was after the EU Presidents post.

wotsthat

I wondered who the 12 were at that time

Founder Members (1957): Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Luxembourg
1973 Ireland, the United Kingdom and Denmark
1981 Greece
1986 Portugal and Spain

By then, albeit with hindsight, it should have been obvious that those countries were economically too diverse for a monetary union to be achieved.

Throw in few more Mickey Mouse economies and it seems even more likely that failure was going to be the likely outcome. Three countries make up two thirds of the Eurozone GDP - how can that work?

Maybe the founder members could have made a better stab at it alone.

Thrugelmir

wotsthat wrote: »

Maybe the founder members could have made a better stab at it alone.

The fiscal rules were bent and broken to create the club by every member. So never was going to succeed.

RichandJ

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The fiscal rules were bent and broken to create the club by every member. So never was going to succeed.

+1

They all thought they could buck the market. They still do.

wotsthat

Here's a link to her 'no, no, no' speech http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108234

Quite interesting - you can really see how the left wing have been jettisoned from the labour party. There seems to be much less of a political divide between the parties these days.

Margaret Thatcher's opposition to the single currency seemed to be based as much on rejecting a move to a federal Europe as a principled objection on economic grounds although there's this gem here..

Yes, I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. It would do just that. It would also mean that there would have to be enormous transfers of money from one country to another. It would cost us a great deal of money. One reason why some of the poorer countries want it is that they would get those big transfers of money. We are trying to contest that. If we have a single currency or a locked currency, the differences come out substantially in unemployment or vast movements of people from one country to another. Many people who talk about a single currency have never considered its full implications.

and here's Neil Kinnock getting a flea in his ear..

Perhaps the Labour party would give all those things up easily. Perhaps it would agree to a single currency and abolition of the pound sterling. Perhaps, being totally incompetent in monetary matters, it would be only too delighted to hand over full responsibility to a central bank, as it did to the IMF. The fact is that the Labour party has no competence on money and no competence on the economy—so, yes, the right hon. Gentleman would be glad to hand it all over. What is the point of trying to get elected to Parliament only to hand over sterling and the powers of this House to Europe? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will understand his brief a little better next time.

Ouch!

andy.m_2

wotsthat wrote: »

maybe the founder members could have made a better stab at it alone.

benelux...?

Quasar

wotsthat wrote: »

I wondered who the 12 were at that time

Founder Members (1957): Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Luxembourg
1973 Ireland, the United Kingdom and Denmark
1981 Greece
1986 Portugal and Spain

By then, albeit with hindsight, it should have been obvious that those countries were economically too diverse for a monetary union to be achieved.

Throw in few more Mickey Mouse economies and it seems even more likely that failure was going to be the likely outcome. Three countries make up two thirds of the Eurozone GDP - how can that work?

Maybe the founder members could have made a better stab at it alone.

I'm Italian, and that is precisely what my father used to say when more countries started to join. Most certainly Italy would not be in the state it is now, as all the others would not have provided scope for so much profligacy but we kept a tighter rein on one another.

Jennifer_Jane

I saw Mandelson very recently (2 - 3 months ago, perhaps) saying the Britain will go into the Euro; he said not at the moment, naturally, but we will be in it eventually. He was absolutely categoric, and strangely unchallenged by the BBC.

I realise that he is an unelected person, but assume he still has influence. Thank Goodness for Brown's 5-point qualification.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

StevieJ

Quasar wrote: »

I'm Italian, and that is precisely what my father used to say when more countries started to join. Most certainly Italy would not be in the state it is now, as all the others would not have provided scope for so much profligacy but we kept a tighter rein on one another.

You mean it would have been easier to bail out Italy than bail out all and sundry