He might have added that the bit that is in recession has very little experience of this

He might have added that the bit that is in recession has very little experience of this sort of economic reverse. We know things go down as well as up, but countries like Malaysia didn’t realise this could happen.We are going to have a period – I guess three to four years – of continued economic tension until the next cyclical upswing takes hold. During this time some countries and some people within them will inevitably feel angry, miserable, destructive, and want to cut off from the rest of the world If this is what globalism means, let’s stay in bed. You hear it already.Managing the world through this period is going to need governments which are both realistic and persuasive. The world economy has had an extremely successful half-century, built on the growth of international trade. For the first 30 years, that growth was mainly within the developed world, but over the last 20 years (and particularly over the last 10) the focus of growth has shifted to embrace the main developing countries, China and the former Soviet Union.We now have – happening this moment – the first serious world economic downturn since that shift of emphasis occurred As Blair said, 25 per cent of the world is in recession.

Governments are perfectly free to put up intellectual walls – that is Old Labour – but the more effective governments will be those which buy and sell on the international market. Wise buying enables them to provide better services at less cost, or nudge the economy successfully to greater efficiency Effective selling increases their influence in the world. The government response to globalism is to become, in a limited way, more global itself.It is particularly important that governments should see their role as influencing the world beyond their own boundaries. The present government was an importer of US political ideas when it fought the last election, buying both techniques and policies from the Democrats. It may also become an important exporter with the “Third Way”, a great piece of brand identity, assuming it can figure out what it is.It has been fascinating to see the way in which politics in Germany and Japan are being transformed by Tony Blair. If you want to win an election, pick the guy whose style is closest to our Prime Minister. The German SPD did so with Gerhard Schroder, while the principal opposition party in Japan is lead by the young and attractive Naoto Kan, rather than the septuagenarians who run the LDP government.So though there is no international trade in actual politics, in the sense that people in one country can vote for politicians in another, there is international trade in political style and political policies.

If we don’t like a British-made car we can always chose to buy a German one. But we cannot buy German social security, or American gun laws (assuming we wanted to). If we want a different government we have to move.This will change. I don’t mean that government will behave like a multinational, with subsidiary “factories” around the world, producing and selling its services. Rather, I mean that successful governments will be those which become successful traders in ideas, exporting good ideas about governance, importing good ideas from abroad, and building strategic alliances with like-minded governments overseas.The UK became an important exporter of ideas in the 1980s with privatisation, and has become the main conduit bringing US ideas of flexible markets into the EU. A generation ago most companies operated mainly in their own countries. A handful of industries had become global – the oil companies, part of the motor trade – but most had not Now the position is reversed.