Will approach parity sometime in 2011 - after the Conservatives win the next UK election and are forced to take drastic action to try to save the UK economy. Long term - I'm talking about 5-10 year plus, Euro will eventually settle at a level above parity with sterling.
The markets are waiting for the Conservatives to win and bring in fiscal discipline as they always do after Labour bankrupt the UK.
This was clear in the 70's after the IMF had to bail out the UK after another bloated government led socialist and statist catastrophe.
The markets are waiting to know that a hung parliament won't occur before sterling rises against the euro.
As sterling is already down 25-30% against the euro, likely to have a competant government in place from June onwards and as the Euro is clearly overvalued in light of its inherently flawed southern states;
parity between the euro and sterling is very unlikely to occur.
More likely a strengthening of sterling against the euro will occur from mid 2010 onwards.
This is not to say sterling is a good investment, long term it is as flawed as the euro and dollar are.
Nonetheless, comparing one flawed currency against another and one has to rise. Sterling has been a dog V the euro for 2-3 years.
I now sense the worst of the two going forward will be the euro due to its inherent problems. The ECB have held off printing but will be unable to do so as a deflationary depression takes over the Med with huge social unrest. April will be an interesting month when Greece need to reissue a load of their bonds.
Part of the reason to own gold and Asian assets. All Western currencies are long term flawed.
Printy, printy is the only way out of our situation, albeit with huge consequences.