Letter: UK forgetting noble vision behind Europe

Sir: Why can we never look beyond our noses? In the Fifties we wrote off the nascent European Community when we could have led it. Instead we jeered at it, did our best to undermine it and ultimately climbed aboard at the wrong time and on the wrong terms.

Fifty years from now, the euro, underpinned by the might of the German economy, will be as firmly in place as the European Union is today. To that will be added the dollar and the currency of what could well be the world's most powerful economy, China.

Will that not leave the paltry pound sterling, with its dismal track record for the past 50 years, bobbing helplessly in the waves made by the super-currencies?

Of course there will be difficulties in the euro, but as Cardinal Newman said: "Ten thousand difficulties do not make a doubt."

PETER PRIOR

Weybridge, Surrey