My position is quite clear. I oppose the selling of our gold reserves. Gordon Brown has embarked on a ludicrous course. The Treasury's announcement triggered a fall in the price of gold, which of course affected our remaining gold reserves. On balance the UK has lost $3.5m or £2.3m (at an exchange rate of £1=$1.56) on the sale of gold.

On the bonds side the gain/loss has been calculated by using the JP Morgan total returns index for 1-3 years government bonds in euros, dollars and yen. It is assumed that the proceeds of the auction are split 40:40:20 between the three currencies. The gain or loss is the difference between the index for each today and the index ruling at the time of the auction. Overall the UK has lost $42.3m (£27.1m) on its euro investments and $1.4m (£0.9m) from its yen investments partially offset by a gain of $8.6m (£5.5m) on its dollar investments.

In total - gold loss plus currency loss - the UK has lost around $38.6m or £24.7m to date.

Before this debacle started we possessed 715 tonnes of gold of which Labour plan to sell off over 300 tonnes. The price of gold has rallied somewhat but whichever way you look at the situation, it makes grim reading.