Dear Sir: The best of the letters pages.05.09.08

With the papers full of the credit crunch and the onset of an economic depression, there is an elephant in the room whose name is never mentioned, the Euro. The media and the politicians it supports had megaphoned to all who were willing to listen that it would be madness to join the Euro; and for a short time after the EuroZone was established, the media was full to tales of woe about the economies of those EU nations who were ‘foolish’ enough to abolish the Mark, Franc, etc.

Not any more it seems; even Sarkosy who when he first came to office was an advocate of the British economic model has pulled back from replicating such economic daftness.

Whereas the British people and there economy are in the depths of gloom, with the Chancellor in his recent interview attempting to prepare the British people for what lays in store, the Euro has not only held its own but prospered, thus the EuroZone is better structured than the UK to weather any major economic downturn. In a letter Brian McGavin suggest it is not to late to bin the sinking pound and join the EuroZone.

Whilst we are on the economy or rather the taxes it generates, Alex Salmond’s proposal to abolish Council Tax in Scotland and replace it with a local income tax has provoked Mel Owen to ask an interesting question, presumably he asked more in jest than hope of a tax free life.

I’m no longer a football fan, although I do periodically check how my local teams are doing,

One of the reasons I have lost interest in the sport was the arrival of the Premier League and the rush by overseas billionaires to gain respectability, if not a little adulation, by investing large sums of money in a handful of Premier League clubs.  That a nasty little shyster like Roman Abramovich can buy his way to respectability by investing money he has stolen off the Russian people is contemptible, that the media flock and worship at his feet, whilst rejoicing when a single mum gets pulled before the beak for doing the double highlights the type of society New Labour has created. That these billionaires are mainly asset strippers is demonstrated by the fact that not one of them has started from scratch and attempting to build a new club that could slowly work its way to the top. As is the way with these scum they use their ill gotten gains to move in on other peoples hard work and loyalty.

Shashank Joshi writes that when the convicted fraudster Thaksin Shinawatra sold an English institution like Manchester City to the Abu Dhabi Group, a company that is owned by the Abu Dhabi ruling family, who have an unsavory track record when it comes to democratic accountability and financial shenanigans; one would have thought it might prove controversial, but no not a bit of it.

Last but not least there is a letter published in the Socialist Worker which points out it is not only in Italy where Roma are having a hard time from the authorities, one need look no further than England.

Mick Hall

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Dear Editor

After fudging for years over his "five economic tests" on whether to join the Euro, Gordon Brown's dithering has seen the pound plummet in value, plunging holidaymakers into deeper debt and hitting retirement payments to British pensioners living in Europe.

As Britain's North Sea oil boom comes to an end, we will be reliant on expensive oil and gas imports. A study for the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform predicts that by 2013 the UK may well run up a cumulative deficit in oil and gas imports in excess of $500bn. With oil-exporting nations increasingly demanding payments in a stable Euro currency rather than the chronically weak dollar, our energy bills will rise even further.

We could soon be back to the speculation of the 1990s and may bitterly regret not joining the strong and stable Euro Brown disdains. He also boasts about presiding over low interest rates. Yet lower interest rates can more readily be traced to the introduction of the Euro in January 2002.

With the Euro no longer an issue of contention between Blair and Brown, the media has lost interest in challenging Brown on joining the eurozone. We need to do so before it is too late.

Brian McGavin

Wilmslow, 

Cheshire

Guardian 5.09.08.

Sir

If I lived on the Scottish side of the border but worked on the English side, would I escape paying both local income tax and council tax? 

Mel Owen

Somersham

Cambridgeshire

Daily Telegraph 05.09.08.

Dear Editor

The free marketeer, Gordon Brown, has exacerbated the housing mess in this country by years of sitting on his hands and now seeks to save his job by setting up a scheme that persuades first-time buyers to buy in a declining market (Brown's £1bn plan to help homeowners, September 2). It's government-sponsored negative equity.

The government should let house prices slide to realistic levels based on a 3.5:1 ratio of prices to incomes - the historically established norm. Help the dispossessed by the usual means, accelerate social housing provision and let local authorities regulate rents. Introduce a tax on undeveloped property to deter land speculators and compulsorily purchase the 750,000 empty properties for the homeless. That is what a proper Labour government would do. Pity we haven't got one.

Alan Marsden
Penrith

Cumbria

Guardian 3.09.08.

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Dear Sir

Imagine that someone allied to a track record of human rights abuses periodically sold off his country's primary export commodity at a high price, thereby further securing his undemocratic and repressive tenure. Imagine that the entire country was run by his extended family, which distributed the country's natural wealth among itself and severely restricted freedom of speech, assembly and judicial independence.

If such a group of people attempted to purchase a British football club to whom many millions of fans have an intense emotional attachment, one might think there would be some controversy. Not so. Manchester City, and all British football clubs, deserve better.

Shashank Joshi 

Department of Government, 

Harvard University

04.09.08.

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Dear Comrade

Your recent article (» Attacks on Roma echo a warning from history, 30 August) highlighted the institutional racism that Roma in Italy and Gypsies and Travellers here in Britain face on a daily basis.

In Swansea, where I live, there is only one official site that is grossly inadequate for the number of local Gypsy families.

It is situated on a contaminated site that was previously occupied by heavy metal industry. Toxic waste surrounds them, children play in an unsafe environment, and accidents and illness are common.

Other families have been living on roadsides for years with no access to water. The police constantly harass them and move them on.

Readers should also know that Gypsies were not just victims of the Nazi Holocaust – they also fought and died heroically during the Second World War, joining the resistance and the Allies to fight fascism.

Despite this, they rarely merit a mention at memorial services. The Traveller Education Service in Swansea has argued for the role of Gypsies be recognised and valued as part of the annual Holocaust Memorial Day event.

Helen Tingate,

Swansea

Socialist Worker 6.09.08.