The so-called 'anglo-saxon' economic model which Blair would like to introduce into other EU countries may look good on employment figures. But it increases the public deficit as well as increasing inequality between rich and poor. Because what about those employment figures? They are achieved by forcing youth, young mothers and disabled people into low-paid, temporary and part-time work.

The 'anglo-saxon' model is the World Bank approach in disguise. It's driven by the notion that privatisation of public services is a good in itself - contrary to all the evidence that 'public-private partnerships' are wasteful of taxpayers money and provide inferior services, which usually have to be bailed out by the public purse.

In the developing world, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) is pushing the World Bank agenda of privatisation, including essential services such as water and electricity. Both these utilities could have a profound effect on women's lives - no need to walk 5kms to fetch water on your head, no need to grind millet by hand, clean drinking water, light for your daughter to study by in the evenings... But privatisation means the poorest people cannot afford to pay.

That's not all. It is British firms who are benefiting from the privatisation rule. The Tanzanian government recently curtailed a DfID contract with a private British water company because of its inefficiency. And now in Sierra Leone DfID is using aid money to pay British PR advisors to mount a public awareness campaign - aimed at countering public resistance to privatisation of water services.

Of course, the UK has its own agenda as regards militarisation: this includes huge sums of public money going to prop up the British arms industry and covert promotion of the sale of British-made arms to the Middle East and the third world...