Airstrip One

Gold News

I'm puzzled. Nothing new there.

Iain Murray points out an article in the Times:


The Liberals split over Ireland and imperialism in the 1880s with one faction, the Liberal Unionists, bolting the party. They split again over the prosecution of the First World War, with Lloyd George detaching himself from his colleagues. The Gold Standard prompted a Labour split in the 1930s, with Ramsay MacDonald going Awol. The political consequences of the Korean War cast Labour into opposition in the 1950s. Devaluation did for Harold Wilson in the 1960s. The proposed withdrawal from the then EC and the rise of CND led to the SDP in the 1980s.

In every case, it has been a foreign policy dispute (often ones with serious economic implications) that has torpedoed the Left in power.

How, other than incidentally, was the Gold Standard a foreign policy issue? Remember this was before Bretton Woods when we were expected to maintain our own currency and not rely on the Americans to maintain the link with gold.

Is this trying to fit an inconvenient fact into an otherwise watertight argument and hoping no one will notice, or is this another instance of the Times hiring the wrong fact checker?