Party-poopers Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel have a good case

It may have been Jamie Oliver's food, but the G20 leaders managed to get through dinner last night without a walk-out by a disgruntled President Nicolas Sarkozy. And, if the PM's confidence is any guide, the summit is still expected to reach its conclusion today without a temper tantrum.

However, that is not to say there won't be considerable table-thumping along the way as Sarkozy and Angela Merkel insist on their "red line" demands for tougher-than-planned regulation of the international financial systems.

It has been tempting for the so-called Anglo-Saxon side in this row - Gordon Brown and Barack Obama - to allow the impression to grow that Sarkozy is simply grandstanding. The notion that he is miffed that it was Brown and not he who first received the US President is one of the underlying suggestions.

Sarkozy is clearly angered by that notion and let it show in his press conference yesterday when he insisted this his tough line had nothing to do with "ego or tantrums". And the truth is, if Sarkozy and Merkel had not come to this summit with red lines over precisely the issue they believe led the world into this crisis, they would not have been getting a very good press back home - where it really counts come election day.

While Brown has spent recent months blaming America for the crisis, the Europeans have been blaming Britain and America. They would even have some justification for telling Brown and Obama "We told you so" over their economic model which offered ultra light-touch regulation against Europe's more interventionist, social approach.

And there are plenty of Labour MPs who are quietly supportive of the stand being taken by the two Europeans - both, ironically, centre-right leaders.

So there will undoubtedly be last-minute wrangling over the section of the communique dealing with regulation of the global financial system. It will be up to Brown, the host, to sort it out.

One man confident he can is Business Secretary Lord Mandelson who said he really didn't understand what all the fuss was all about because Brown and Obama agree with the French President. "In my eyes it is a distinction without a difference," he declared. He was careful not to mention grandstanding, but appeared at a loss to suggest an alternative explanation. That didn't seem designed to calm Sarkozy's temper.

Meanwhile, one hugely significant development has already come out of President Obama's visit to London.

One of the great tests facing the new President when he came into office was to deliver on his promise of re-setting relations with the rest of the world following the final dark days of the Bush regime. Yesterday, he took a massive step towards delivering on that when he and President Medvedev of Russia agreed to massive reductions of their nuclear arsenals.

On any other day this would have been front page news around the world. It may still turn out to be the most significant development at this gathering.

THE MOLE: G20 SUMMIT

FIRST POSTED APRIL 2, 2009