We were wrong

One of the many reasons why I could never be a politician, apart from my lack of interest in people and general unlikeability, is that I could never do the evasions that are necessary.  For years I thought that successful politicians simply lied about their past beliefs out of opportunism. Recently having seen it first hand, it seems to me that they simply don't believe they held those positions for those reasons in the past at all.

Now we all do that to a degree, but I think it's important to recant when you're wrong. I've been wrong about many things in my time, and this won't be the last, but it's pretty spectacular: I spent much of the late 90s and 2000s on the wrong side of the single currency debate. At the outset of monetary union most of the fears seemed unjustified, and there is still some overblown rhetoric around - like this.

But, some of the issues were real, and poor judgement and lack of discipline about entry and membership has had the inevitable effect, as Ireland has shown and I suspect more will. There's a longer set of thinking about what it shows though. It doesn't mean that this was automatically doomed. Remember Benelux was yoked to the Mark for years before the Euro, and we've had currency union with Ireland in the past. Rather the experiment was too big, too soon, and with too little structure. I believe in the European project, but it needs discipline, and caution - things lacking in this construct and which I was too quick to overlook.

I don't think we're owed an apology from those who held a view that has turned out to be right, but I do think we should recognise we were wrong. For once, we were better off out.