Sir Bob, speaking to MSPs this week, argued that unless the meeting of world leaders made concrete progress in addressing starvation facing the continent’s poor there was little point in the summit going ahead.

But as a spokessausageroll told the JT, it would be impossible to now cancel the planned meeting. "While agreeing with Sir Bob that, on the basis of the record of previous summits, nothing will happen to address the needs of starving millions, we really can’t not have the meeting - I mean, the catering been arranged for months."

Political analysts however agree that interventions of people like Sir Bob perform a useful function in modern economic life by giving a voice to the world’s poor.

Or as Professor Beaker of Glasgow’s Centre for the study of Political Symbolism now explains: "It’s vitally important that the world’s politicians be seen to applaud Bob’s advocacy on behalf of the dispossessed. Duly invigorated they can then attend the G8 summit only to find that nothing is going to happen to deal with the obscenity of poverty unless the US delegation thinks there’s some money in it for the rapacious plutocrats it’s their job to look after."

Meanwhile, plans to limit protests at the G8 summit, involving closing a public road adjacent to Gleneagles, have led the protest organisers to re-think their tactics.