Letter: 'Dirty floating' inevitable in a world of deregulated financial markets

Sir: I am puzzled to hear ministers once again grumbling that there are 'fault lines' in the ERM. Surely geological fault lines enable the great plates that make up the earth's surface to move against one another, in a constant series of small shocks. Even in geologically stable Britain we get earth tremors. It is only when the fault lines cannot handle the pressures that major earthquakes occur.

The problem is not the existence of ERM fault lines but their failure to relieve the pressures of the system. Our government seems to be equally shaky about tectonic structures as about economic policy.

Yours sincerely,

GED MARTIN

Edinburgh