Philippe Legrain

Discussing debt relief and third world development with Noreena Hertz on the Today Programme. Listen here

Tony Blair must be thanking his lucky stars. The British prime minister never wanted to fight a referendum campaign on the European Union constitutional treaty that he stood a good chance of losing. Now, thanks to the No votes in France and the Netherlands, it looks like he will be spared the ordeal. When, in [...]

Many French people rejected the constitution because they regard Brussels as the handmaiden of "ultra-liberal" Anglo-Saxon capitalism, intent on deregulating markets and opening up the French economy to competition. Just look, they say, at the EU’s proposed services directive, which would tear down barriers to trade in services, or at the eastward enlargement of the [...]