Word: pound
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Macmillan was not the first to offer such a solution to Britain's problems. Ever since the pound took its disastrous nosedive during the last days of September-thereby forcing James Callaghan's Labor government to ask for yet another $3.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund-Britons have been treated to a Cassandra's chorus of elder statesmen appealing for a government of national unity...
These glowing figures tend to support West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's oft-repeated view that the pound sterling, which has dropped 20% in value against the dollar in the past year, is actually undervalued. Says the research director of one of London's biggest merchant banks: "The North Sea will give sterling holders plenty of reason for encouragement if the government can only convince them it won't fritter it away in foolish increases in public spending. Once that message gets across, I wouldn't be surprised to see sterling firm up immediately...
...pinning his hopes on the West Germans. Schmidt recently met with Callaghan; he has agreed that West Germany will give full support for Britain's IMF loan application, much of which will in fact involve German funds. Bonn will also drop its demand for a revalued "green pound," the rate of exchange at which agricultural transactions are conducted within the European Community and that now amounts to a subsidy for British food prices. Thus, as in Italy, the economic clout of the West Germans may well be a decisive political factor in Britain...
...contrast, the minor roles are handled with a much greater sense of what Shaw is about. Cynthia Cardon is just right as Prossy, Morell's secretary and admirer, snapping out her consonants, as Shaw once suggested she should, with a "ten pound gun hammer spring." Thomas Champion, as Burgess, Candida's father, has a laudable Cockney accent, and Mariani himself oozes idolatrous servility as the cleric Lexy. One of the most successful scenes in the production is the comic encounter between Prossy, Burgess and Marchbanks; in this run-in with characters who have the outlines of caricature, Marchbanks' own exaggerated...
...conference, lamented New Zealand's Prime Minister Robert Muldoon (who also serves as Finance Minister), was plainly "overshadowed by events." They included the political uncertainties in the U.S., Japan and West Germany, Britain's request for a $3.9 billion IMF loan to prop up its suffering pound sterling, and the growing probability of another price increase by the oil-exporting countries this winter...