Alastair Campbell

Obviously, Keir Starmer went to COP, then went to the G20.

The European leaders then went straight from there to Angola.

for the EU Africa summit.

So these summits are still going on.

Now, the question from India is whether they still have merit, I guess, underpinning that, without the Americans taking part.

And I said on the Ukraine episode we did that I'd been speaking to people who were there.

And it was interesting how they...

they sort of feel in a way it matters even more at the moment.

And that while they're there, while they're addressing some of these issues, and when you read the stuff that came out of Johannesburg, there was lots and lots of stuff that hasn't got any coverage here, but actually was about further engagement in Africa.

And we've talked a lot on the podcast the extent to which China has been all over Africa.

Militarily, Russia is all over Africa.

So I think these summits do still matter.

I get why people think, you know, why are these leaders always on a plane?

Why are they never sort of focused on stuff here?

But I think right now in this kind of weird moment in history that we're at, I think these alliances are going to become more important.

The more that America retreats, the more I think that we –

UK, Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, like-minded countries with similar values, we've got to start shaping our own agenda.

And that relates to our previous discussion about Ukraine.

And he did it very deliberately to say, I'm going off to deal with really big stuff now on my own.

But it also shows how these things develop.