PORTILLO AND THE EURO

Dateline: 28th February 2000

You report that Michael Portillo, the Tory Shadow Chancellor, has "softened the Tory line on the EURO". In more precise terms he has of course shown that he cannot accept as a matter of principle a sovereign British nation with its own currency (the very essence of Conservatism).

For a senior member of the Tory Cabinet which entered the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and signed without any qualms the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union, this abandonment of principle may not be surprising.

But for a leading Conservative whose party suffered its worst defeat for 160 years and must in order to reverse that defeat move in a radically eurosceptic direction this latest piece of Portillo policy making is an extraordinary blunder.