The euro has landed

Euro starter kit

Several of the world's major currencies passed away peacefully today, with surprisingly little mourning. But the euro, on day one, is already more than just the new money of twelve of the countries of European Union, and 300 million people.

All candidate members of the EU will be required to adopt the euro, and several other nations of the world have pegged their currency to it. It has, in one leap, become second to the dollar as the global reserve currency of choice.

And from today the effect of the euro on Britain, the biggest European economy not in it, begins. You will be able to spend it in just about all the big household name high street shops. We may, for the first time, be heading for a parallel currency.

The European Commission has been running a snapshot poll on the euro's first day. Gerassimos Thomas, spokesman for Pedro Solbes, the Economic and Monetary Affairs commissioner, tells us how the euro is getting on, on its first day.

Professor Anthony King examines the poll evidence to support the view that the tide of public opinion in the UK will now turn in the euro's favour.

A sceptical Nick Harvey is fatalistic, now that the currency has arrived and, from Britain's side of the fence, Lars Danielson, Sweden's Europe minister, believes that the argument in his country is swinging the euro's way.

And, for the Tories, David Davis denies that the loss of the pound is inevitable.

Cloning

And in the last of Nick Clarke's special interviews, he has been speaking to Professor Richard Gardner, one of Britain's leading scientific figures, about the developments we can expect to see in the near future on the complex issue of cloning.

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To listen to these interviews and reports, click on the links above.