Western Morning News (Saturday)
PM sets scene for G7 in Cornwall at online meeting
BORIS Johnson has told world leaders there is “no point” in vaccinating national populations if efforts are not made to ensure the “whole word” receives jabs.
In what is being seen as an online dress-rehearsal for the full G7 Summit, to be held at Carbis Bay, St Ives, in June, Boris Johnson pledged to donate the majority of the UK’s surplus vaccines to poorer nations.
Addressing the leaders from Downing Street, including US president Joe Biden in his first major multilateral meeting, Mr Johnson encouraged other developed nations to join the effort to increase the global vaccine supply.
He said: “Science is finally getting the upper hand on Covid which is a great, great thing and long overdue. But there is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations – we’ve got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it’s no use one country being far ahead of another, we’ve got to move together. So one of the things that I know that colleagues will be wanting to do is to ensure that we distribute vaccines at cost around the world – make sure everybody gets the vaccines that they need so that the whole world can come through this pandemic together.”
During the meeting, Mr Biden could be seen laughing on the video call on the screen inside the Cabinet Room after the Prime Minister jovially accused the president’s campaign team of stealing the UK Government’s “build back better” slogan.
“I think he may have nicked it from us but I certainly nicked it from somewhere else – probably some UN disaster relief programme,” Mr Johnson said.
With the UK acting as president of the G7 in 2021, Mr Johnson turned his attention to another of his priorities over the next year – climate change, an issue expected to be top of the agenda when the world leaders meet in Cornwall in the summer.
Mr Johnson told the leaders of the US, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Italy: “I think that this is the right moment for us all to focus on the other great natural challenge about which we’ve been warned time and time and time again.”
Friday’s online conference was the first meeting of G7 leaders since April 2020.
Mr Johnson said he hoped the full summit in Cornwall in June could go ahead “face to face”.
Expressing his support for the G7 format, the Conservative Party leader added: “The G7 is the great gathering of like-minded, liberal, free-trading democracies. It is a very, very important forum.
“We stand together on many issues around the world, whether it is our views on the coup in Myanmar, where our foreign ministers jointly expressed their strong view, or on the detention of Alexei Navalny in Moscow, where again we have condemned it.”