Week Ahead: Joe Biden meeting part of packed but poignant few days for the Queen

GLOBAL GATHERING

World leaders will be jetting into the UK for the G7 summit taking place in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, between Friday and Sunday.

Issues such as ensuring the global supply of coronavirus vaccinations and strategies for tackling climate change are expected to be high on the agenda.

The G7, which is made up of the UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy, plus the EU, are meeting ahead of a Nato summit in Brussels next week.

While he is in the UK, new US President Joe Biden will meet with the Queen on Sunday as part of his trip.

Ahead of the summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “As the most prominent grouping of democratic countries, the G7 has long been the catalyst for decisive international action to tackle the greatest challenges we face. From cancelling developing world debt to our universal condemnation of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the world has looked to the G7 to apply our shared values and diplomatic might to create a more open and prosperous planet.”

ROYAL DUTIES

In addition to her meeting with President Biden, the Queen faces a busy but undoubtedly poignant week.

A scaled-back Trooping the Colour to celebrate Her Majesty’s official birthday will take place for the second year running at Windsor Castle on Saturday. The event will see the Scots Guards parade in front of the monarch, with the event being broadcast live on BBC One.

The event has been cancelled in its traditional form for the second year in a row because of the pandemic. In normal times, thousands of well-wishers usually flock to central London to watch the monarch and royals as they travel to and from Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall and gather on the Buckingham Palace balcony for a flypast.

The mini Trooping will take place two days after what would have been the Duke of Edinburgh’s 100th birthday on Thursday.

In other royal news, the Duchess of Sussex’s new children’s book The Bench, which is about the special bond between a father and son as seen through a mother’s eyes, is being published on Tuesday.

POLITICAL SHAKE-UP

England's political map is expected to be redrawn as initial proposals for new constituencies are published on Tuesday by the Boundary Commission.

The commission has a remit to redraw boundaries in an effort to ensure constituencies have broadly equivalent numbers of voters.

Under proposals to make voter populations in each constituency more equal, England is set to gain 10 MPs, while Wales will lose eight and Scotland is on course to be reduced by two.

London is expected to gain two extra seats, while the North-West and North- East will lose two each, with this week’s announcement setting out how it will work.

There will be no change in Yorkshire and the Humber, which will stick with 54 constituencies. The new constituency boundaries will come into force in 2023 and will be used at the next general election a year later.

ANDREW NEIL’S NEWS

The already much-debated news network GB News will launch at 8pm on Sunday with a special programme.

The new channel, chaired by veteran political interviewer Andrew Neil, will kick off with a show called Welcome To GB News. Yorkshire is well represented on the channel, with locals Colin Brazier, Gloria de Piero and Michelle Dewberry among the presenters.

The channel will follow US news networks in concentrating on opinion and debating the issues of the day.

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