It seems a good time to take this wonderful book, Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy by Ronald Findlay Kevin O’Rourke, off the shelf again: “It would be foolish … to simply assume that the remarkable progress achieved by globalization in the last few decades will be sustained into the future.”

Although I agree with this VoxEU column that the gains are well worth defending, the global political context for continuing trade growth is depressing. And yet the UK government seems determined to get as bad a deal as possible in removing the country away from the most successful free trading area there has ever been. A bad move being made ever worse by its incompetent implementation.