Chilean President Visits London

President Sebastián Piñera Echenique of Chile, the most media-saturated head of state in the world right now, is in London at the start of a European trip to drum up trade. Piñera, who became the country's president in March, comes bearing gifts (rocks from the San Jose mine) and invoked the spirit of Churchill during a visit to the Cabinet War Rooms yesterday. He'll meet today with the Queen and David Cameron, a sight less embarrassing to the party than Margaret Thatcher palling around with General Pinochet during his UK house arrest. President Piñera will also give a public lecture at LSE tonight (tickets are all gone, alas), but rumours that he will also schedule in a meeting with Arthur Scargill look wide of the mark.