Weighing the Pound

Funny thing about the British and the euro: polls show that about 60% of them don't want it but a majority expect they'll get it anyway. The orderly switch to the single currency on the Continent last week only added to that sense of inevitability: the pound is beginning to look like just another un-modern, un-European eccentricity, like Morris dancing or driving on the left side of the road.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the euro makes good economic sense for the U.K., now or ever. Tony Blair's squeamishly pro-euro Labour government has set five...