David Pilling kindly quotes me as suggesting in my recent book that Canada should be ejected from the Group of Eight to make space for China and India. To be fair to my Canadian friends, in Rivals: How the Power Struggle between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, I actually wrote that Italy should be kicked out too.
In fact, I would go on to suggest that in the G8 (unlike in the UN Security Council) it would make sense to have a single representative of the European Union, getting rid of Britain, France and Germany as well. But that would require not only far-sighted and selfless statesmanship but also the ratification of the EU’s Lisbon treaty. I am not at all sure which of those is the less likely to occur.
Bill Emmott
Letter published in the Financial Times (9 July 2008)