Hitherto I have not formed a good opinion of the newish resident member of the "Today" team. An economist by profession (you may have seen him on Dragon's Den; I haven't, cause I don't watch it), he clearly buys into the whole capitalist machine. But this morning he redeemed himself, in my eyes at least. The news was of the far-reaching agreement achieved by the 153 members of the World Trade Organisation. We could hear cries of hysterical applause from their ranks in the auditorium as the agreement was sealed. But when a spokesperson was wheeled out on air today, Evan asked him:
"This seems a very good deal for the richer countries, because they have been able to secure much more open markets for their goods to be sold in the poorer countries, but there appears to be no such reciprocal agreement to allow poorer countries to export to the richer ones. Isn't that wrong?"
No it wasn't, according to the spokesperson; Evan had just got it wrong.
Evan Davies getting something about money wrong? I don't believe it. We know when someone's been nailed, and it happened this morning.
The WTO has been accused of being a rich man's club, looking after its own interests while the "developing world" (which is what we used to call the Third World, but that name referred to the 3 divisions: the west, the communist bloc and the remainder of the poor countries, but now communism's gone phut it doesn't work any more) can go screw itself. And this morning's report shows nothing's changed.
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