One of the (almost) hidden treasures of British journalism is Ambrose Evans Pritchard in the The Telegraph. I say hidden because some of his best stuff is tucked away on his Telegraph blog.

Take this article on the deeply unhappy euro currency area:

“… the last decade has shown once again — if such a demonstration were necessary — that Britain’s rumbustious, credit-driven, Mid-Atlantic economy is incompatible with the economy of Greater “Carolingian” Germany [Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and France above the Loire]. The UK cycle is at least a year ahead. The trade and capital flows are more intertwined with the dollar zone.”

As Neil Mellor from the Bank of New York Mellon points out, the pound has been perfectly hedged in this cycle. Sterling has fallen hard against the euro, giving a shot in the arm to British manufacturers (yes, they still exist, 13pc of GDP) who rely heavily on Europe’s markets: yet it remains overvalued against the dollar, softening the effect of oil, metal, and commodity inflation.

Read the whole article.