What a nice host Vladimir Putin is. Shortly after world leaders gathered in his country for the G20 summit in St Petersburg, a briefing from the President’s official spokesman that Britain is ‘just a small island no-one pays any attention to’ made its way into the media. Nothing like rubbing the nose of one of your guests in the dirt as politicians in this country work out where Britain now stands in the world after rejecting intervention in Syria (more on this in James’s column this week).
A Downing Street source has responded in the brittle manner of a slighted guest at a tense dinner party (think an international version of the wonderful supper in A Week In December), saying:
‘As host of guests from the world’s leading countries, I’m sure the Russians will want to clarify these reported remarks, particularly at a G20 where it’s a very British agenda on trade and tax.
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