You can write next weekend’s news story now. ”The G8 yesterday threw its weight behind a breakthrough in the Doha round of trade talks, saying that rapid progress in coming weeks was essential if the negotiations were not to break down”.

Video: Talking shop

Alan Beattie, world trade editor, previews the forthcoming G8 summit as Putin threatens to target missiles at Europe

It will sound good, but unfortunately the same story could have been (and was) written after the G8 summit last year in St Petersburg and the one the year before in Gleneagles, Scotland, and each time the summit signally failed to produce a great leap forward.