Welcome to F.T. politics, the Financial Times's podcast on all things British politics.

I'm Sebastian Payne and in this week's episode we'll be discussing Boris Johnson's failed diplomatic efforts

at the G7 and whether the government's grammar schools propose will help ordinary

people. I'm delighted to be joined by rural Hal Halaf, the F.T.'s deputy editor, political correspondent Henry Manns, and political commentator Miranda Green.

Thank you all for joining.

Let's kick off with Britain's row on the world stage.

After Brexit, the nation has to reshape how it is viewed

and what it does abroad and the Foreign Secretary obviously plays a big part in this.

Yet Boris Johnson has had a bit of a rough week after his first efforts to lead opinion at the G7.

After talking with the idea of enforcing tougher sanctions on Russia in the press,

he was rapidly slapped down when the German foreign minister said he did not want to further isolate Russia.

So where does this leave the situation in Syria, Russia's relations with the world and the UK standing?

So Henry Boris is in a rather odd position, Theresa may clearly made

him foreign secretary to allow him to grow or shrink in his first front French row and

it certainly looks like he shrunk this week because he's tried to lead opinion and failed and now looks a bit foolish.

Perhaps the starting point should be that a week or two ago we were saying how Britain preparing

for Brexit was cozying up to all these nasty regimes such as the Philippines

such as Saudi Arabia.

And in the case of Russia actually, the government has stuck to a very hardline position,

probably the most hardline in the G7 of opposing Moscow.

And so you can at least make the case that that an ethical stance, it dates back all the

way to the killing of Alexander Lippinenko in some ways.

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