Small island will need to talk big on Syrian aid

Even though Vladimir Putin slotted Syria into the G20 agenda last night, no-one seriously thought that this meant the world leaders would come to a proper agreement on what to do about the conflict. In the last few minutes, David Cameron has told journalists covering the summit that ‘divisions are too great’ for a deal, and that Russia wants further evidence that the Assad regime was behind the terrible attack in August.

George Osborne was on the Today programme earlier discussing the summit. He said:

‘We’ve set out what we think is the right response, obviously President Obama has set out what he wants to do and there is a disagreement around the table, I don’t think there’s any secret about that. I was not at the leaders’ dinner, but what I’ve heard is there were a number of people around the table – for example the Turks – who put a very strong argument about how the world must respond to the use of chemical weapons and that was a very passionate and heartfelt appeal.’