One can only describe the Prime Minister's attitude to us joining the common European currency as half-hearted, which suggests to me that he is not fully aware himself of the immense historical, economic and political importance of it (Blair comes off the fence to back euro, 30 June 2000). 

Politics is lagging far behind technological developments, which have created an entirely different world to the one our parents or grandparents were born into. 

During the past century, technological progress has become exponential and is now changing the world at neck-breaking speed. Having grown up with it, we are hardly aware of it, anymore than we are aware of the enormous speed with which the earth is hurtling through space (spinning on its axis, orbiting the Sun and, with the rest of the solar system, the Galactic centre).

The earth's motion is driven and controlled by the natural and entirely predictable force of gravity, but what is the headlong rush of technological progress driven and controlled by?

By man himself. Wherein lies the danger, and our chance of averting it.

If we join the common European currency, our democratically elected politicians will at least have some influence on fiscal and economic developments; if we do not, they will have none at all, and we will be entirely at the mercy of "economic laws", which are currently driving us on a collision course with the life-supporting ecosystems of our planet, Spaceship Earth.