Mixed reviews for Obama’s state visit to UK

On the pomp and plumage side, the highlights of the visit obviously included the state banquet held by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in honour of the visitors. But no less important was the dinner hosted by the President in honour of the Queen, an intimate evening at the official residence of the US Ambassador to Britain, organised by the Obamas as a thank-you to Her Majesty.

The business side of the visit, however, was marked by a meeting at Number Ten Downing Street between the President and Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as an address delivered by Mr Obama to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. It was the first time that an American President had done so.

Don’t get me wrong. Previous US presidents have addressed both Houses before, but Mr Obama was given the special honour of doing so in historic Westminster Hall (built in 1097). He said he had known few greater honours and repaid the compliment with a call to action and leadership that defined the Anglo-American alliance for years to come.

Before an audience that included four British Prime Ministers, the President teased the British about their anxiety over the health of “the special relationship,” then challenged what he called “one of the strongest alliances the world has ever known” to bury fashionable fears of decline and re-assert its leadership of the free world and of those seeking to join it.

The speech was actually the centrepiece of his week-long tour of Europe and may well prove to be his most important on any foreign trip this year.

Returning constantly to the theme of Britain’s and America’s shared democratic values, he promised Libyans that the alliance would not relent until “their shadow of tyranny” was lifted.

In the words of the Times, he jettisoned his own caution on Afghanistan to envision “a country that is strong, sovereign and able to stand on its own two feet”. He answered critics of his response to the Arab Spring by acknowledging that “the entire world has a stake in the aspirations of a generation that longs to determine its own destiny”.

Urging the world’s liberal democracies, led by the US and Britain, to do more to empower women, girls and the impoverished majority in developing countries, he echoed President John F Kennedy when he said: “We do these things because we believe not simply in the rights of nations but in the rights of citizens.” Mr Obama gave time in his speech to many other issues, among them global security, the death of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the global economy, climate change and the challenge of a rising China and India. At the heart of the speech was a case for the US, the UK and their allies to play a leading role in global politics.

Not all the papers were high in praise for the speech, however. The Financial Times said the address failed to raise the roof and described it as a mild disappointment to the peers and MPs who arrived early in the historic Hall.

The Daily Telegraph did not think his words merited mention on the front page, but carried instead pictures of Mrs Obama and Mrs Cameron at a barbecue hosted by the Prime Minister and his wife at Number Ten Downing Street. The Daily Express also had pictures of the barbecue on its front, but it thought the speech invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill.

As for the Daily Mail, the overall verdict was that the visit, though a PR triumph, was short on substance. The Guardian devoted much of its front page to the speech and said the President put the US and Europe unambiguously on the side of those fighting for freedom across the Middle East.

The Independent said: “He came, he spoke and he conquered Westminster.” The Sun’s position was that the visit only served to show who was still boss. So there you have it, a few more aspects of Mr Obama’s state visit to the UK that you may have missed.

P.S: In case you are wondering, it is considered a rare privilege for a foreign leader to be allowed to address both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. Since World War Two, the only leaders to have done so before Mr Obama have been President de Gaulle in 1960 and President Nelson Mandela in 1996. Pope Benedict also did so last year.