Letter: Euro jobs threat

Sir: The controversy over Eddie George's unusually frank remarks about the difficulty of conducting economic policy with sufficient flexibility to be able to help ailing regions ("Fury at talk of `acceptable' job losses in North", 22 October), should be seen in the context of that other great debate, on the euro.

Membership of the single currency will have the same effect, but on a larger scale, unless accompanied by a raft of compensatory resources and policy instruments which the European Union does not yet possess. Unemployment in bigger regions than the north of England will have to rise to ensure low inflation in the golden triangle of the European economy - a point that voters will no doubt bear in mind when assessing the government's increasing commitment to entering the single currency.

C J HILL

London N4