John Major, sounding as though he has already prepared his excuses for a defeat at the coming election, has admitted for the first time that Britains entry into Europes currency grid was a political mistake.
Events made a monkey of us, the prime minister said of Britains humiliating ejection from the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) in September 1992.
Interviewed on Wednesday by BBC television, Major implicitly endorsed the view held by many members of his Conservative party that the ERM debacle, by making ministers look incompetent, was at the root of the governments current unpopularity.
Major described the pound sterlings forced exit from the currency grid, the precursor of the European single currency planned for launch in 1999, as the biggest blot on what subsequently happened in the eyes of the public.
The Prime Minister said he was prepared to apologise for the matter as long as he could also take credit for the fact that the discipline of joining the ERM in October 1990 had helped give Britain its lowest inflation rate in generations.
Going into the ERM is seen by many people as a mistake. That is certainly true, politically it can certainly be said to have been a mistake. But economically, if we had not gone into the ERM, I very much doubt we would have killed inflation as comprehensively as we had, Major said.
But we came out of it in ignominious circumstances and that was a political mistake, he conceded.
The main opposition Labour party said Major should not be surprised that voters have refused to give his government credit for the economic recovery ushered in by sterlings exit from the ERM, which allowed interest rates to come down sharply.
It is a bit late for reluctant death-bed apologies, Brian Wilson, Labours campaign spokesman, said.
