BBC News reported Britain’s imminent accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership behind two stories about racism in cricket, giving no suggestion that it might represent a major economic breakthrough. Rather the opposite, with emphasis
on the cautious official prediction that CPTPP membership will add just 0.08 per cent to UK GDP over the next 15 years.

But as a former Asia-Pacific wanderer myself, I’m almost as excited as Lord Frost about the prospect of tariff-free trade with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.