Posted by Ivan Rendall on Saturday, 24 July 2015 in Blogging
Cameron gives an extended interview on US TV, pledging the UK to its old alliance with the US;
Obama gives extended interview on BBC TV thanking him, and ‘helping’ the Europroject.
Whose strategy is this?
Well, it takes two.
Are we in for a Brief Encounter type affair between them, a sort of tears in the waiting room romance in the closing years of their two careers at the top, a late, rather weepy self-denial before a parting of the ways as they contemplate the world as it might have been.
Will the British electorate really pay any attention to the self-confessed custodian of US interests when their pencils hover over the No square on the EU Referendum ballot paper.
Barack Obama is a thoroughly decent, warm and convincing leader, but he leads the people of a politically-successful, federal state not the people of part of a politically unsuccessful ersatz state. He is a Leviathan not a Lilliputian. Barack Obama cannot forget it, nor should he.
The EU deserves a positive vote because if it fails, war will beckon. We Lilliputians have forgotten that, and squabble over the price of beans, fiscal and half-baked.
But the suspicion must be, that having the cousins on our case will not help those arguing for “BritStay” who will be wary of American entreaties, even if they come from possibly the president closest ever to the European sensibilities.
I would congratulate the BBC on the interview, but they got in way ahead of me to slap their own backs, and will do for the rest of the day no doubt. You’re very good BBC, but telling Cameron is more important than telling the rest of us who already know.
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