• WHICH plan to end austerity did the Tory government abandon as a result of the vote to leave the EU?

The harsh reality is that if John McDonnell were to enter Number 11 as chancellor he would find himself sharing the collective experience of Viscount Snowden, Hugh Dalton, Sir Stafford Cripps, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey. All dealt a bum hand but a hand they played by imposing austerity.

The point about sound money is that there is only so much you can print before the public is no longer fooled. We are already suffering a high level of inflation in key areas: health, education and property.

Inflation of property prices and the impact on rents caused by loose money is holding back the economy of London, not Brexit. The euro was a great opportunity to put things right.

If every country that aspired to adopt the currency had been required to transfer gold to the European Central Bank in proportion to the size of their economies, and the ECB had only issued currency fully backed by that gold, they would have driven out bad money and replaced it with good. They could have done a good thing.

Sadly they used the Deutsch Mark and the ERM exchange rate mechanism; a standard but a low one and easily circumvented. It was a great opportunity! But where were the great men and women when needed?

STEPHEN SOUTHAM, N1