Friday's Letters: What would have happened if Britain had adopted the euro?

I support anything that encourages debate on the European question, and there is no doubt that James Goldsmith's intervention did this. The crux of the matter is the question of what would have happened had Britain adopted the euro, which seems to attract some wild speculation.

As with entry to the then EEC, the first and best opportunity was at the outset. It would have been important to obtain good terms regarding the exchange rate at the point of entry. I believe that the John Major team was skilful enough to do this.

Britain would then have obtained a seat at the ECB's policy-setting council, enabling us to exercise a positive influence over crucial matters. For instance, some ECB members were known to be doubtful about admitting Greece, whom we now know to have cooked the books.

If, at the time of changeover, UK interest rates were markedly lower than those in France and Germany, this may have called for unpopular fiscal measures, for the purpose of pre-empting an unsustainable credit boom. The fact that this was not done at the national level in Ireland, for instance, enables Mr Birley and others to blame the euro for the awful consequences.

It is interesting that here in Britain, while we did not get the euro, somehow we still got the housing boom and bust.

Economics textbooks define a currency's objective worth as its utility as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account.

As of today, the euro is used by some 330m people, compared with the 62m who use the pound. Eurozone inflation is at 2.2 per cent, while in Britain it is at 3.3 per cent – or 4.7 per cent, depending on whether one believes the CPI or the RPI.

The unit of account factor is related to the store of value, insomuch as the higher the inflation rate, the greater is the damaging distortion to historical accounts.

Of course, the debt crisis continues and things may change. But if our escape from Mr Birley's euro disaster is somewhere in these official figures, it seems to be very well disguised. I suspect that he is seriously overegging his case.

From: Michael Swaby, Hainton Avenue, Grimsby.

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole.

In writing about the EU (Yorkshire Post, January 7), James Bovington is almost totally wrong as usual. With the euro teetering on the brink of collapse, his open statement about a successful currency is almost laughable.