Hague has been vindicated on the euro

The Foreign Secretary finds himself in the rather unique position today of trying to deal with the consequences of a crisis that he largely predicted. In May 1998, William Hague gave a speech warning that the single currency would lead to social unrest as governments tried to cope with one size fits all interest rates. It is a reminder of how much Hague was swimming against the tide of bien-pensant opinion that Michael Heseltine claimed this prediction was so extreme as to drive the Tories off the centre ground.

But what is, perhaps, more interesting than Hague’s vindicated view that the euro, in a crisis, would be the ‘economic equivalent of a burning building with no exits’ is his view on how European governments would resolve the problem.

“In order to make the single currency work I fear the European Union will be forced to intrude more and more into the spending and taxation decisions of individual states.