Prime Minister Andy Burnham has confirmed that Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit in Manchester in November 2027. The announcement came exactly one year before the event, which is a long way off and a short way from the next budget.
The reason given is sanctions. Those sanctions, the government says, will keep Mr Putin away from a summit that has no agenda, no confirmed guest list and no venue booking, under a calendar that does not yet exist.
Can a prime minister forecast a guest list two years out? He can. He just cannot be held to it.
Sanctions have a solid record of changing policy and making people pay attention. They have a weaker record of predicting where any individual will be on a Tuesday in autumn 2027.
The official G20 page currently lists the summit as ‘Manchester, TBC’. The TBC is doing a lot of work.