Letter: Forget the pound

Sir, Peter Johnson (letter, 14 October) need have no concern over whether a common currency could work in an area with large disparities of income, low mobility of the labour force and few arrangements for redistributing wealth from the more to the less prosperous areas through a federal tax and benefit system. Sterling has functioned as a common currency for many years in such an area - the UK.

During the past fifty years the pound sterling has fallen from $4 to $1.60 and in the last thirty or so it has fallen from 12 to 2.8 against the German mark. Most of us would be delighted to be rid of it and have it replaced by a stable unit of European currency. It is very unlikely that any replacement currency would perform in the long term worse than the pound has done already.

DAVID J HUTCHINSON

Petersfield, Hampshire