A passage to India | 3 November 2016

When a Prime Minister flies off abroad with a few business-leaders it is seldom worthy of comment. Such trade missions tend to achieve little, beyond generating headlines intended to flaunt politicians’ pro-business credentials. But with the impending departure of Britain from the European Union,-Theresa May’s visit to India next week, accompanied by Sir James Dyson and others, has huge significance. For the first time in four decades, a British Prime Minister can discuss doing trade deals — something which we have until now been forced to contract out to officials in Brussels.

Mrs May has chosen her destination shrewdly. With its rapidly expanding economy and the gradual liberalisation of economic policy, India is everything that the EU isn’t. It has the fastest-growing GDP of any large nation. Its people speak English. In this year’s World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, India jumped 16 places to number 39 — above Italy, Portugal and Greece.