Jon Bright (London, OK): I've just come from a CentreForum event advertising the launch of their new pamphlet: 'Globalisation: a liberal response'. Samuel Brittan and Vince Cable were on hand to fly the flag for free markets (with safeguards), relaxed immigration laws and the end to notions of 'reciprocity' in trade negotiations. Brittan was all for allowing Polish plumbers in to London - we need to find what to export back in which we have a comparative advantage, he said, and that was for the market to decide.
Cable was free to attend because he is boycotting the state visit of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia - a visit which, coincidentally, appeared to be taking place right outside the window (a band could be heard marching past as Cable himself was speaking). His boycott, if I need to tell you, was over the regime's record of human rights abuses, and also the row of alleged corruption in the al-Yamamah arms deal.
Is support of free trade compatible with this type of 'moral foreign policy' approach? Cable, as far as I'm aware, does not want us to break off trade relations with Saudi Arabia. He simply doesn't want us to go out of our way by 'honouring' King Abdullah with a state visit. Which is fine - but one of the main purposes of visits such as this is to strengthen relations, particularly trade relations. Receiving heads of state is part and parcel of a globalised world, it's part of doing trade well.
I have always been for the idea that we should be bringing people in rather than making them pariahs (I was pro giving China the 2008 Olympics, for example) but I can also see why Cable might not want to have to glad hand someone who presides over a state where women aren't allowed to drive. Has he found a nuanced middle ground which preserves some principle in an imperfect world? Or is his position tantamount to the idea that we should trade with Saudi Arabia, we just shouldn't be very good at it? Do we need a moral trade policy? No easy answers - as always other opinions are welcome...
