Gord’s truth?

Dave Cochrane (Letters, 18 June) writes authoritatively that Gordon Brown saved us by keeping the UK out of the euro.

Does Mr Cochrane have a crystal ball? Gordie may have been right but he just may have been wrong, as he was in so many other areas.

Who is to say that the UK within the euro would not have done as well as Germany? That nation has greatly benefited from the euro by manufacturing and exporting via an implied exchange rate massively favourable to it – which is the main reason it is so keen to see that it survives.

Had we gone into the euro at an advantageous rate (as the so-called “Iron Chancellor” would have surely secured – wouldn’t he?), we could possibly have been the other European economic powerhouse.

So, please, let’s have less of the revisionist glorification of Brown. For a start, we don’t seem to be doing that well even though we are not a euro country.

Mr Brown also sold off our gold at rock-bottom prices, failed completely to regulate the banks, chickened out of seriously tackling the public sector pension affordability problem, failed to reserve for bad times and generally presided over one of the worst meltdowns of our economy and lifestyles.

David K Allan

Mainshill

Haddington, East Lothian