Letter: Tories in Europe

Sir: While Kenneth Clarke is right that that the euro's performance this year may well turn out to be considered a success, since coming down without disaster from an overvalued position is a success, he is wrong in his implication that the UK should have joined the euro (report, 28 December).

What is important is the market's reaction to a pound outside the euro. The reaction was that the natural sterling link was with the dollar: the pound has followed not the euro but the dollar in the markets. To join the euro would be to go against the natural linkages of the British currency and economy.

MARK AUSTIN

Morden,

Surrey