Chrtistian Aid has come out with an advert saying that free trade is a type of slavery. It is difficult to take Christian Aid's political campaigning seriously at the best of times, but this really is ridiculous. Letting poor people freely choose themselves who to buy from - rather than only from local producers - is not a form of slavery.

In India, where for decades after independence, the ideas of 'trade justice' were followed, the population was fleeced by local producers, and the poor - often literally - starved. Trade justice, as Christian Aid uses it, is the road to poverty. Given that it involves restricting people's choices and chaining them to local producers, it is 'trade justice' that is the real slavery.