Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I stand corrected, Andrew. You are right, the proceeds were reinvested.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that this sell-off cost us something in the order of £7 billion. Not the brightest of moves.
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Appreciate your acknowledgement.
The £7bn is a highly dubious figure pedalled by the Daily Telegraph. The Sunday Times puts it at £2bn and that paper was no fan of Brown. This needs to be offset by the longer-term financial returns of the investments that replaced gold.
I think the idea was a good one but Brown was rightly criticised for announcing it in advance, thus impacting negatively on gold prices. But no one apart from a Captain Hindsight knew that gold was in a trough at a time and would recover and no one has sought to buy more gold, thus vindicating the move.
Brown's legacy is independence for the Bank of England and that has stood the test of time.