Opinion: Rarely if ever have so many unpopular, discredited, likely-to-be replaced national 'leaders' as appeared at the G7 summit

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The opening get-together in the annual summer summiteering season was titled G7 Italia, after the location at a posh resort on the Adriatic coast. It should rightly have been Dead Men Walking.

Rarely if ever have so many unpopular, discredited, likely-to-be replaced national “leaders” gathered on a stage to be opped for a photo that would be out of date almost the moment they landed back in the countries that desperately want to be rid of them.

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Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Fumio Kishida… if any of them faced a vote tomorrow there’s an excellent chance they’d be ex-leaders the day after. Of the seven G countries, six are spoiling to kick out the incumbent. The only one still in good standing is Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who won office as a revolt against uninspiring opponents resembling Macron, Sunak, Trudeau and the others.

Who elected leaders like this bunch? Who was foolish enough to trust national fortunes to such inadequate hands?

Oh yeah … it was us.

Judging by public opinion, the quality of governance now common in the western world is so dismal it raises doubts about the wisdom of letting ordinary people choose their leaders in the first place. When Jane and Joe Public pick a pack of hopeless cases as bad as the current crew, who’s to blame, the hopeless cases or the people who picked them?

If asked, the hopeless cases who gathered in Puglia could be expected to blame their predicament on events beyond their control. COVID did it. Putin did........

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