G20

I expect that Gordon Brown has high hopes for the G20. It is his set piece, a way of getting a week of uninterupted media coverage while rubbing himself up against 19 far better leaders than himself to try and deflect attention from the awful state of the economy and the debt horrors that are going to be announced in the budget. Unfortunately that 19 could be reduced to 18 with the undisputed star staying away. Maybe Obama fears that the power of The One will not be strong enough to escape the Brown Curse. Nor is he going to get any help from his union paymasters either with Unison planning a series of protests during the G20 just to make sure everybody remembers why they hate them as the country begins to sink into stagflation.