This week’s New Statesman magazine sheds some light on the exchange between Barack Obama and David Cameron:

The initial part of the conversation was picked up by an American ABC News microphone: an inane exchange, instigated by Cameron, about the need to take regular breaks. “You should be on the beach,” said the Tory, with Obama agreeing that “you’ve got to refresh yourself”. What is not publicly known is that there was less agreement when, soon afterwards, the discussion turned substantial in Cameron’s Commons office. Obama began by saying that he hoped to work closely with the EU.

But, in a crude attempt to demonstrate his Atlanticist credentials, Cameron went on to indulge in what one source has described as an “anti-European diatribe”, repeatedly referring to the “anti- Americanism” of EU member states. Cameron apparently told Obama that he would not encounter a more pro-American politician than himself. If Cameron thought this would impress Obama, he was wrong. It would appear he had failed to study the multilateralist candidate’s Berlin speech 48 hours previously.

…

On meeting Cameron, Obama was, according to diplomatic sources, “distinctly unimpressed”, contrary to some reports (excitedly spun by the Conservatives) which suggested that the two men had formed an instant “bond”. Instead, I have been told, Obama exclaimed of Cameron after their meeting: “What a lightweight!”

He apparently also asked officials about Tory Euroscepticism. Soon, word about the rather awkward encounter between the two selfprofessed candidates of change made its way quietly round the upper echelons of Whitehall. A widely read, broad-minded internationalist, Obama has long valued Europe and, asked during the primaries against Hillary Clinton to name the crucial US allies, he instantly placed “the European Union” at the top of the list.

….more on the New Statesman website

Reader comments

1. B Bigelow

   Let us remember – Obama on David Cameron: "What a lightweight!" http://is.gd/c4wug #ukelection #ge2010

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