The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression deserves a comprehensive, measured response, and a lot of painstaking thought about how the global economy should be run. But what the world risks hearing is an exercise in grandstanding, with tired old ideas pulled off the shelf and unconvincingly repackaged as bold new initiatives. That, at least, is the initial impression from the chorus of calls for a “new Bretton Woods” that has emanated from European leaders this week, particularly Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister.

Mr Brown is in danger of getting ahead of himself. Flushed with success from the international praise he has rightly garnered for acting decisively to stave off the UK’s banking crisis, he has dusted off an idea that he has been touting for years – a global “early warning system” to combat financial crises – and called for the International Monetary Fund to take a leading role in regulating global finance.