"Why have a Euro that is worth 60 pence here, but more in Germany or less in France?" It doesn't work like that. The Euro is worth the same all over - but what it would show up is the way prices in English shops and so forth tend to be so much higher than in other countries in Europe for all kinds of things, from cups of coffee and hotels to motor cars.

And no doubt there are examples where you can quote the opposite, but that doesn't really change anything. The point is the rip-off merchants are going to find it a little bit harder to get away with it than they do now. Especially with the Internet available.

It strikes me having a common currency is just convenient. Going back to the way it always used to be. It's the wrong issue. Now having some pillocks in government, any government try to tell us what weights and measures to use - that's far more important, and the people who just rolled over on that are now the ones who claim to be so worried about the euro. Once the single European Act was signed by Thatcher's lot the rest is just tidying up the mess.

Local currencies like "Lets schemes" - that's the way to go for anybody who is seriously interested in resisting centralisation, and the right level for decentralising isn't big nation states, it's regions or even smaller.