Barometer | 30 March 2017

First through the exit

Is Britain the first country to leave the EU?
— As a full part of France, Algeria was effectively a member of the Common Market between 1957 and 1962. That ceased upon independence in 1962.
— Greenland joined as part of Denmark in 1973. After winning home rule it held a referendum on membership in 1982, and 53 per cent voted to leave.
— The Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy became a member of the EU as part of Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France. This ceased when Guadeloupe seceded.

Deal or no deal

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox’s department has set up working groups with 15 countries to develop post-EU trade agreements. But do such deals boost trade?

Number of deals boosting or slowing
export growth

Source: Civitas

Crowd cover

The England Cricket Board’s new Twenty20 competition is based on cities, not counties, to increase attendance. How many people went to watch cricket in 2015?

— 785,000 attended international matches (tests and one-day matches).
— 1.54m attended domestic matches
— Of those, 513,000 attended four-day county cricket matches.
— With 34 matches this works out at 15,100 per match, or 3,770 a day.
Source: ECB

Change sides

A new 12-sided pound coin entered circul-ation. Other nations with many-sided coins:

— Chile issues peso and 5 peso coins with eight sides.
—Canada has a dollar coin with 11 sides.
— Tanzania and Swaziland both have 12-sided coins.

Thrup up and away

The sterling threepenny bit introduced in 1937 had 12 sides. What was its real value compared with a modern pound coin?

— The 3d coin was equivalent to 1/80th of £1. Since 1937 inflation has devalued £1 to 1/65th of its then value. Therefore, a 3d coin in 1937 was worth about 81p today.