Those Liberal Democrat economic principles

With EU enlargement imminent, the Government must act to ensure British investment and competitiveness is enhanced.

Malcolm Bruce MP, Liberal Democrat spokesman on Trade and Industry, press release, 'Set business free to make Britain competitive', 17 November 2003

There are erroneous beliefs that are often regarded as common sense but which are really self serving convictions, which I sometimes dignify by the name of businessmen's economics... [An] example is the cult of competitiveness in ministerial and business speeches. Competitiveness applies to individuals or companies, not to nations. Perhaps the best way to see this is to realise that not every country can be more competitive against every other. Against whom should the world be more competitive? The Moon? Or Mars?

The tiny vestige of truth in this kind of talk applies only if a country has an overvalued exchange rate. Nearly all so-called competitiveness problems arise from misconceived attempts to peg a country's exchange rate.

Sir Samuel Brittan, Financial Times economics columnist, speech, 'Maybe I need an economist to tell me that', 13 October 2003

Coincidentally, one of the political parties does advance a misconceived proposal to peg this country's exchange rate....