From spin to sting

A thirteen year old financial crisis involving Britain's ignominious departure from the Exchange Rate Mechanism is suddenly front page news again after documents sent from HM Treasury under the new Freedom of Information Act to the Financial Times regarding a request for papers, somehow arrived at the BBC.

Black Wednesday.

Apparently, it cost us taxpayers £3.3 billion.

It also made the canny George Soros, a rather rich man.

The actual documents are here. However, some of the pertinent information has been held back for security reasons. Yeah.

The Conservative Party are angry - intimating a sting operation to discredit their fiscal track record. The Guardian have several articles on the story, including that crusty old noise-pot, Norman Tebbit, bitching about it. John Major weighs in too, evaluating what happened. See here for Samuel Brittan's thoughts on it from last year.

The FT have plenty to say on the subject - interestingly their print edition reads as if they were saving it for a special report but their hand got forced and they had to write it up for immediate publication.

Aside: y'know there's a band called Norman Lamont?