Cummings or Hancock @ G7

There's a choice to be made - either Cummings has told the truth, or Hancock has. Agreed, both might be being a tad economic with the truth, but one has to look at it in the round.

There's no doubt that Cummings was the individual who narrowly brought Brexit over the line, against all predictions, by using lies. However that doesn't mean to say he's lying now, especially when one considers he was being handsomely paid to do a job in the run up to Brexit. He's no longer being paid to lie, nor is he touting for business from this government.

Yes, he told a whopper about the eyesight test, but he was then on the inside the tent looking out and Boris was desperate to retain his services. He's now firmly outside the tent.

Hancock, however, is fighting to preserve his job, which is a great incentive to mangle the truth. His biggest mistake was to insist there was no PPE shortage, which is as blatant a lie as could be told when we all have the benefit of hearing the news at the time and witnessed the dodgy PPE deals, many of which came to nothing, and thus colours his version of everything else he says. He's also part of a government that has weaponised lying as an arm of policy.

I somehow suspect that Cummings has the smoking guns needed to prove his case, but has kept his own powder dry until such time as Hancock was given the opportunity to hang himself in front of the Select Committee, which would make it worse for him. 

My money is on Cummings triumphing and I believe we can expect a steady drip-feed of evidence from Cummings over the next few weeks, in the form of texts and emails. He's a canny operator, when all's said and done.

As for the G7 meeting, I was under the impression that all the horse trading was done well in advance of the leaders descending on the venue by flunkies and that the meeting was merely a jolly and a PR exercise for the media where the results of the deliberations are announced. Yes, there's a bit of social mixing and maybe a few stern warnings issued, leader to leader, but essentially it's all flim-flam.