Covid-19 drives leaders to make unprecedented interventions but what next?

New thinking is needed because of economic turmoil since 2008 and environmental concerns

For years, those on the left in Britain have been arguing that the government should be more aggressive in its use of state aid to revitalise those parts of the country affected by industrial blight.

Now, at last, we have ministers prepared to have a bare-knuckled fight with the EU over their right to intervene on behalf of those living where the factories and the coalmines used to be, but they grew up as disciples of Margaret Thatcher, who insisted that tough state aid rules be included in the rules for the single market. Ah the irony of it!

Governments everywhere are questioning whether globalisation is all it is cracked up to be

Related: We are in desperate need of a recovery plan. But the Treasury has gone missing | Gordon Brown