A letter to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph which was published on 19th February 1995.

Before Sir Patrick Sheehy (Business, February 12th) writes another article advocating abolition of the pound, he should read the Maastricht Treaty, particularly Protocol 3, which defines the powers and constitution of the future European Central Bank.  He will see that, far from Britain having “more control of interest rates in Europe than we do now”, we shall have no influence whatsoever.

Article 7 of Protocol 3 says that “when exercising the powers and carrying out the tasks conferred upon them by this treaty and this statute, neither the ECB, nor a national central bank, nor any member of their decision-making bodies shall seek or take instruction from Community institutions or bodies, from any government of a member state or from any other body.  The Community institutions and bodies and the Governments of the member states undertake to respect this principle and not to seek to influence the decision-making bodies of the ECB and of the national central banks in the performance of their tasks.”

Thus, not only will government ministers be unable to even speak with the board of the European Central Bank, but the Chancellor’s much publicised meetings with the Governor of the Bank of England will actually be illegal.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 20th February 1993.

Your article yesterday quoting the words of the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, Mr Graham Kentfield, about our banknotes: “We should keep away from anyone like Nelson, who might upset our European neighbours”, lifts a veil on the identities and attitudes of those in our political classes who take the key decisions in our lives.

Whether Nelson offends more than a handful of present day Continentals, I doubt if Mr Kenfield knows, but what is certain is that he did not at the time offend any but the French and possibly the Spanish by his great victories from 1798 to 1805.  Indeed Haydn, an Austrian, dedicated his wonderful Nelson Mass as a tribute on hearing of Nelson’s victory at Aboukir Bay, while Wellington’s troops were welcomed by the French people in Toulouse in 1814 as a relief from the undisciplined depredations of Napoleon’s forces.

The real point though is that a tiny number of men have taken on themselves the task of jettisoning our nation’s heroes, preferring to consult the supposed feelings of rivals and competitors before those of the British people.  This emasculates and diminishes us when every ounce of national spirit is needed to tackle and overcome our problems.

While the British have no shortage of heroes and achievers it is important however that we put on our banknotes those who are permanently of world historical class, judged by both the uniqueness of their achievements and the effects of those achievements.  In the period from Elizabeth I to Victoria there are, I submit, seven front runners in this category: Shakespeare, Newton, Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, Faraday and Darwin, the first three holding the first position in their fields.  They should be placed on the £5, £10, £20 notes and left there, the other four being rotated round the £50 and (overdue) £100 notes every 20 years or so.

A letter to the Editor of the Times which was published on 7th October 1991.

It is a pity that Sir Peter Hordern (October 1st) should subscribe to the view that central banks control inflation through their supply of the currency.

The massive inflation which we are only just recovering from was not due to the Bank of England’s printing a large over-supply of bank notes, but to the vast expansion of credit by the commercial banks.  This expansion of credit in 1987-9 expressed as a proportion of GDP, more or less accounts for the inflation rates of 8 to 11 per cent during those years.

A central bank per se, whether independent or not, is an almost total irrelevance so far as inflation is concerned in a world dominated by thousands of different monetary agencies able to switch assets and liabilities across the world at the touch of a button.

For continentals the drive for a European central bank is seen as a vital step on the way to a European state and government.  Monetary and political union are inseparable as everyone, except the British political centre, with its overwhelming wish to avoid hard choices, recognises.