Ireland's woes could be good news for the pound

Candidates for "quote of the week" are coming in thick and fast this morning. There's Alan Greenspan, the world's least self-aware man, gently berating the US for "pursuing a policy of currency weakening", in the Financial Times this morning. You may remember that a strong dollar policy was not an obvious feature of Greenspan's regime at the Federal Reserve. Then there's our own Mervyn King. As he unveiled the latest quarterly inflation report, the Bank of England governor noted that in two years' time, it's "about as likely that inflation will be above the target as below it". In other words, 'we haven't a clue, but we're getting a bit worried that this deflation thing was a complete red herring'. But I think the winner, for sheer black comedy, has to be this cracker from George Papaconstantinou, the Greek finance minister (thanks to the FT's Short View column for this). In attempting to reassure the world that Greece is not about to go bust, he said: "Greece is not Ireland". I couldn't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure an Irish official said something similar during the Greek crisis earlier this year. Ah, sweet irony.