Boris Johnson is largely toothless. And that’s just how Theresa May likes it | Martin Kettle

We shouldn’t overstate the foreign secretary’s powers where Russia and the G7 are concerned. The truth is, the prime minister will make all the big decisions

Boris Johnson is incapable of flying below the radar. So the cancellation of his visit to Moscow last weekend, which would barely have been noticed if Britain possessed a greyer foreign secretary, is being seen by some as another career crisis for this emotionally neediest of politicians. True, it is a tad embarrassing for the foreign secretary to be pulled off the plane to Russia as if he was some surplus United Airlines passenger on an overbooked flight. But let’s not exaggerate it by being wedded to the worn-out narrative that everything that Johnson does is always either fascinating or important.

Related: Boris Johnson asks G7 to consider fresh sanctions against Russia and Syria

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