G8: The British government will remain locked in negotiations with the other G8 countries about its Africa plan and climate-change proposals right "to the wire" of next week's summit at Gleneagles.
This was made clear last night as Chancellor Gordon Brown attacked the "hypocrisy" of wealthy nations denying poorer countries access to their markets.
Mr Brown in a speech linked the government's agenda for the relief of African poverty with its campaign for the reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (Cap).
With excitement building ahead of Saturday's Live 8 concerts and the planned long-march on Edinburgh, the chancellor's message was echoed by international development secretary Hilary Benn, who said the rich world faced "a moral imperative" to achieve trade justice.
They won the backing of Conservative shadow chancellor George Osborne, who said protectionism for rich countries was "immoral" and must come to an end.
The outbreak of domestic political consensus came as church leaders from around the world called on US president George Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair and other G8 leaders to take the necessary action to end extreme poverty at next week's summit.
A statement released during the Transatlantic Forum on Global Poverty at Lambeth Palace read: "We believe God judges nations by what they do to the poorest."
It added: "For the first time in history, humanity possesses the information, knowledge, technology and resources to bring the worst of global poverty virtually to an end. What is missing is sufficient political and moral will."
Downing Street was counting on both last night, while the prime minister's official spokesman told The Irish Times they were "taking nothing for granted" and had "still a lot of work to do".
While G8 finance ministers recently agreed a package to write off the debts of the poorest countries, Britain has still not secured its aim of doubling aid by $25 billion. Mr Brown will have to pursue his planned international finance facility without US support.
Earlier this week Mr Blair admitted securing agreement on climate change was difficult.
Cabinet minister Margaret Beckett admitted yesterday the prime minister had taken "a great political risk" in making it central to his G8 presidency, while insisting "he is still trying, he will not give up".
In his speech to the UN children's agency Unicef, Mr Brown said the subsidies in the developed nations were denying farmers and growers in the poorer countries the chance to lift themselves out of poverty through the export of their produce.
"We cannot any longer ignore what people in the poorest countries will see as our hypocrisy of developed country protectionism," he said. "We should be opening our markets and removing trade-distorting subsidies and in particular, doing more to urgently tackle the waste of the Common Agricultural Policy by now setting a date for the end of export subsidies."
With Mr Blair and French president Jacques Chirac battling over Cap, Mr Brown said it was essential that poorer nations were given the chance to participate equally in the world economy.
"Unfair trade rules . . . shackle poor people and poor communities still further," he said, "so trade justice is not simply about removing the barriers that hurt the poor, but about creating new capacity that empowers poor countries to participate on equal terms in the new economy."