0/T Intrest rate up to 0.75%

[Brin]

Got to feel for the young folk with families, come to think of it, even singletons with their mortgages.

Things are tight as it is and this jump is bound to affect some.

[Brin]

Oops! Should read Interest and not Intrest

[BramleyMiller58]

Hopefully it'll not return to the old days

Remember it going up to 10% and 15% in just one day
Cue panic in the Bramley58 household

Pulled out of ERM and it went back down

[Pattylallacks2]

Usually what happens when you pull out

[BramleyMiller58]

[Brin]

Usually what happens when you pull out

Not when we were 20 odd though! Those were the days...

[loyalmiller]

Remember that day in the late 80's early 90's when the rate went up to 15% I was worried sick and then the next day it went back down to 14%.

If the rate ever hit those heights again the mortgage system would

[nakedtruth]

Yes it's been harder in the past. Without a doubt. Plus two income households were a bit rarer.

We had the strengths of the Unions then though to keep wages in line.

[Muchthemillersson]

Hopefully it'll not return to the old days

Remember it going up to 10% and 15% in just one day
Cue panic in the Bramley58 household

Pulled out of ERM and it went back down

I remember that day very well. I had bought my accountancy practice, the office building and a new house so I was pretty much exposed to the interest rate. 10% I could afford but 15% I could not. I knew I had to make two people redundant the following morning. The morning came and I bottled it. Just as well because news filtered through that we were out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the previous day's interest increase had been reversed.

Many years later I happened to be sat next to Norman Lamont at a Eurosceptic dinner in London and I asked him about that day, which they called Black Wednesday and we call White Wednesday, when the UK crashed out of the ERM and with that giant leap freed us from ever joining that financial disaster, the Euro.

I told him about my situation at the time and asked him if, during that traumatic day when they tried to keep us in the ERM if they had considered what the 5% increase would do to small businesses. He was honest enough to say to me "We never gave it a thought."

The ironic thing is that Norman Lamont is a Eurosceptic but yet when he was in office he was promoting the EU's cause without any conception of the harm it was doing to us. There are many more like him, in public office today.

When Lord Lamont stood up to speak at the dinner I told you about he said something that I will never forget -

"I know of no benefit that we get from being a member of the European Union that we would not get if we were not members of it"

And he should know.

[WanChaiMiller]

I told him about my situation at the time and asked him if, during that traumatic day when they tried to keep us in the ERM if they had considered what the 5% increase would do to small businesses. He was honest enough to say to me "We never gave it a thought."

The ironic thing is that Norman Lamont is a Eurosceptic but yet when he was in office he was promoting the EU's cause without any conception of the harm it was doing to us. There are many more like him, in public office today.

Bit like the current Tory Eurosceptic European Research Group. They know full well the damage that leaving the EU with no deal will cause British business, yet plough on regardless. And its leader happily admits we'll see no benefits for 50 years.