Why the euro always looked like a dodgy business deal

DURING the early 1990s, when describing the Single Currency to my constituents, I asked them to imagine EU countries as businesses.

Thus, Germany Ltd and France Ltd wanted to merge because they had similar, healthy, balance sheets. They were profitable; they had common goals and such a merger would enhance their prospects in a competitive world.

They invited Great Britain Ltd to join this great venture on the same basis.

However, before GB Ltd signed up, it was disclosed that a number of other loss-making companies had accepted invitations to join.

Many of their balance sheets were formulated using rules from the Enron school of accounting.

Notwithstanding they were riddled with debt, rife with corruption and all had vastly different working and legal standards than the three successful companies.

One company, Italy Ltd, had had almost as many boards of directors since the war than there had been years since the war. (We decline to write of its managing director). Meanwhile, it was company policy at Spain Ltd to take a nap during the afternoon. Greece Ltd was unconcerned about collecting monies due to the company. Most of these “write-offs” were relying on the merger in order to survive.

No sane businessman would have signed up to that deal and, some 15 years later, thank God that neither did we.

I would dearly like to hear from some of my former colleagues, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and John Gummer, to mention just a few, to see what they had to say for themselves now.

From: Ian Gill, Great Ouseburn, North Yorkshire.

FOR the benefit of Mr Bywater (Yorkshire Post, September 22) and others who wish to penalise hard-working successful people, could you please print the following written by the American conservative Adrian Rogers?.

“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The Government cannot give to anybody, anything the Government does not first take from somebody else.

“When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

From: Arthur Quarmby, Holme, Holmfirth.

PRIME Minister David Cameron has been sabre-rattling at the United Nations in New York, threatening military action against Middle Eastern regimes which do not meet with his approval. So here is one man who is still not persuaded that we are absolutely skint, and continues to prefer the Viv Nicholson approach to life.

Can he possibly be the right person to lead us out of this mess?