G7 leaders need some clear-the-air talks rather than fake smiles | Larry Elliott

The Beatles kept up their pretence but world leaders must face up to their differences and find solutions to potentially corrosive threats

In 1975 the French president, Vali(C)ry Giscard D'Estaing, had a brainwave. The great powers of the west were reeling from their first postwar recession, which had led to both higher unemployment and rising inflation. America had just suffered the twin blows of Watergate and defeat in the Vietnam war.

Giscard thought it would be a good idea at this tricky time to invite the leaders of five other western powers - the US, the UK, West Germany, Japan and Italy - for an informal chat at Rambouillet, a chateau near Paris. And so the modern era of summitry was born. The G6 became the G7 when Canada joined, and for a while it was the G8 with the inclusion of Russia.