Today I went to a speech by Nick Clegg. It was interesting in its policy and political content.
As far as policy is concerned he talked about the World Trade Organisation rules. WTO rules are more like a religious doctrine than a recipe for sustainable or fair trade so I agree with Mr Clegg.
At the moment a country cannot discriminate between imported products on the basis of how they are produced. So goods produced through child labour are equivalent to those made by well-rewarded staff, climate-destroying goods are equivalent to climate-friendly goods, and production of goods that lead to species extinctions are equivalent to wildlife-friendly goods? That's a big snag! And so it's not surprising that the LibDem environment paper, Our Natural Heritage (which was adopted by the Conference this afternoon) is strong on revising the WTO.
When it came to the politics Mr Clegg was very clear - the Greens are a wasted vote, the Tories are fundamentally dishonest and the environmentalists in Labour should join the LibDems! Well - that's pretty clear!