There’s been a G7 meeting in St Ives and Jo Biden even flew over earlier in the week to meet with Boris and discuss the really tough questions ahead of time: things like whether to get to Cornwall via the M4 or the A303, always a tough one that. You probably remember that nursery rhyme, “As I was gong to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives” but contrary to the lyrics, no middle eastern leaders were invited. I jest of course, the man with 7 wives is more likely to be the prime minister.

Joe Biden has of course been trying of course to get people to sign up to his minimum tax pledge which is likely to be good for the UK economy as the financial services industry signs lucrative contracts to help companies relocate the earnings overseas to a non-G7 country. As they say, tax needn’t be taxing though it should be if you do a good job organising your income, just ask any of my 28 declared dependants, I make so many deducations they should call me Sherlock. Amway, sleepy uncle Joe’s plan will work great, just as long as they somehow convince Hong Kong, Monaco, Bermuda and Switzerland to sign up to high taxes. Luxumberg is more likely to win this month’s football tournament than sign up to and, more importantly, enforce those tax proposals on foreign companies.

As the other leaders in attendance, there’s Emmanual Macron who’s enjoying his last summer as President before he gets trounced in next year’s election. France is a real mess these days, despite having a town called Nice. I should probably do an extended video on it one day but we’re in a situation similar to the Algeria crisis in the 60s with the army opening penning letters about a military takeover, all while members of the public hold Macron in utter distain, we was recently slapped in the face at a recent walkabout. In paris itself the un-rebuilt shell of Notre Dame cathedral stands as a metaphor for government incompetency and malaise. It’s going to take a decade or more and personally if I were Macron I’d bring in the Germans to get it sorted, I mean they finished a thousand year reich in under 12 years, they do things fast.

As to the conference itself, the only real questions being discussed were what to do with regards to Covid. If they had any nerve of course then they’d publish the evidence and go all in on China with a full set of economic sanctions, get the 7 economies to circle round Beijing like the Hyenas at the end of the Lion King. Or it’s President Jinping so maybe a Winnie the Poo reference would be more appropriate. As things stand nothing of substance has come out from it but as usual
“progress had been made on a number of major issues” by which of course they mean lunch, and perhaps agreeing on a release date for that new James Bond film. That’s been delayed so long they should rename it “for no eyes only”