REUTERS – President Joe Biden said Britain’s Queen Elizabeth reminded him of his mother and that she had asked about China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin as they had tea at Windsor Castle on Sunday.

Biden lavished praise on the 95-year-old British monarch after their private meeting which came at the conclusion of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit at which he called for concerted action on China and ahead of a meeting with Putin on Wednesday.

“I don’t think she’d be insulted but she reminded me of my mother, the look of her and just the generosity,” Biden, 78, told reporters shortly before departing London.

“She’s extremely gracious, that’s not surprising, but we had a great talk. She wanted to know what the two leaders that I — the one I’m about to meet with, Mr Putin, and she wanted to know about Xi Jinping, and we had a long talk.”