Co-conspirators on this site are scattered across the world and David Vance has published this most interesting article on A Tangled Web about the Euro but with an Irish slant.

Read the whole article here but here is the first paragraph:

“I see that our acting Prime Minister, Lord Mandelson, has declared that the UK should enter the Euro and junk our thousand year old currency and that this remains Government policy. Now we know that Mandy is a foaming at the mouth Europhile – and given the £1m pay off he got last Autumn when he stepped down from his post as Commissioner why would he not love it – but I think that his comments show the disdain, indeed the arrogance that he and his ilk have towards the wishes of the British people who show no interest in the Euro and every desire to keep the Pound.”

From a few thousand miles away, your Man In Gibraltar notes that carrying Euros for that unexpected dinner in Spain is a fact of life and that most shops here accept both (at a refreshingly entertaining exchange rate – if it was on water it’d be piracy). On the border in NI that is probably true as well.

However the Gibraltar and Jersey governments have given their long term commitment to Sterling even if the UK is consumed by the Eurozone. Which leads to the fun idea that one day the Sterling currency might be only be valid in….the offshore bits.