HAVING been under the weather with a persistent virus for the past month I am now progressing and taking note of what’s going on in the world. I have noted two very good letters (SA, March 26 and 28) from Des Morgan on the Libyan campaign the contents of which I fully agree.

Before my illness I wrote about the International Monetary Funds’ health check on Britain in 2006, it praised the banking sector as “one of the strongest among the world’s most advanced economies”, the letter was never printed.

Now a letter from Michael Thomas (SA, March 28) speaks of the IMF’s thoughts in April 2007 that the world economy still looks well set for continued robust growth in 2007-8. As he says we all know what happened the global economy collapsed as a result of a financial catastrophe triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US.

How true are his words in the next paragraph of his letter when he says, “It is ironic that what would hitherto have been regarded as extreme socialist policies involving large-scale nationalisation, were introduced to save the major financial institutions in the USA and UK, Gordon Brown was hailed as saviour of the day.

In George Osborne’s budget he finished with the words “Let us be heard around the world from Stuttgart to Seattle from Sao Paulo to Shanghai Britain is open for business.

No word from Stuttgart or Seattle but Sao Paulo said corporation tax alone would not be enough to locate in Britain they would also have to change their currency to the Euro. China still has the Opium Wars in mind; we couldn’t use gunboats to force the issue this time, no boats, no navy.

M J WARNER

Groundwell Road

Swindon