Since mega crook Najib Razak appointed a new Chairman of Malaysia’s National Bank, Bank Negara the Malaysian currency, the ringgit, has continued to slide against real money, such as the US dollar. Sometimes slowly, sometimes precipitously but slide none the less.

When national currencies slide there is almost always a political reason. After the Bank of England noisily opposed Brexit, which then happened, the UK pound dropped sharply. As this was largely a political scenario the pound will recover against other world currencies.

But for Malaysia the case is different. The ringgit is crashing not because of any trade or economic reasons but for the purely political reason that the country is in the hands of a megalomaniacal dictator who has taken all the levers of power into his own hands in a bid to try to cover up his thefts of billions of dollars worth of public money.

As this power grab can only end in tears and long prison sentences no one wants to be left holding the currency of a bankrupt and failed economy and country. That is why the ringgit is sinking out if sight and it will go on doing so, ever more rapidly, to the point where, as in the Weimar Republic, wheelbarrows were needed to carry about enough money for a daily shop and the principal object of thefts was   wheelbarrows.

If Malaysia wants to avoid a similar fate it had better put Najib and his crew of fellow criminals where they belong; in jail