Where are all my after-dinner speaking gigs?

How excited are you to hear the Prime Minister talking tech with Eric Schmidt, an American billionaire who used to run Google? Me neither. But their on-stage conversation is billed as the highlight of the government’s International Investment Summit in London next week, designed to show the world the UK is ‘open for business’.

What with Downing Street looking like Game of Thrones after the Red Wedding massacre, and both Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill and Rachel Reeves’s tax-grab Budget looming, the timing of this summit could hardly be worse. A month ago there were rumours it was in disarray, with doubts whether it could attract a quorum of global investors or would have to be packed with unknowns from the much-mocked list of ‘120 business leaders’ who signed a letter of support for Labour before the election. Even now, only a handful of speakers besides Schmidt have been named.

As for the ex-Google boss himself, he’s billed as a guru on artificial intelligence and he’s here to help Starmer articulate a vision of the UK as ‘a hub for world-class talent’.