Doha is dead. Hopes for fairer global trade shouldn’t die, too

It's a sign of how Doha failed that leftwing protestors no longer target it as a symbol of capitalism. But some good things will fade with it

Over the past few days, trade ministers from scores of countries have spent hours flogging the long-dead horse that is the Doha round of global trade talks in Nairobi - and hardly anyone noticed. The World Trade Organisation, which convened last week's conference, was once regularly targeted by protesters as the secretive, all-powerful puppet master of global capitalism.

Back in 1999, in the innocent days before the sub-prime crisis laid bare the sinister power of international finance, WTO talks in Seattle broke down amid clouds of tear gas, as anti-capitalist protesters expressed their fury at the rigged rules of the global marketplace, which, as they saw it, entrenched the wealth of the rich and excluded the poor. Yet last week's gathering, attended by Britain's Lord (Francis) Maude, barely registered with the world's angry young radicals, who have turned their attention to bashing bankers - through the Occupy movement, for example.

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