Barack Obama’s UK state visit – day one live updates

Arriving late last night from Ireland, Barack Obama today begins the first official day of his state visit to Britain – meeting the Queen, David Cameron and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge 10am: Obama, of course, flew in to Britain early to avoid the ash cloud. Not so Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis who has just called off his UK visit tomorrow and Thursday because of the Grimsvotn volcano’s spewings. 9.50am: No “beast”, the Obama car, yet visible on the streets of London so royal biographer Penny Junior is telling the BBC about preparations for tonight’s state dinner. The horseshoe-shaped table will take an astonishing seven hours to prepare, some of which time will be taken up measuring the distance between place settings so they are a uniform distance apart. Good topics of conversation with the Queen are dogs and horses (luckily Obama has a dog ). Junor also tells us: “The royal family is not that interested in wine, they are more spirit drinkers.” 9.25am: Andrew Sparrow has more on the special relationship on his politics blog: One of the depressing features of an American presidential visit to the UK is that it always triggers a banal debate about the “special relationship”. The Americans think that it’s just a symptom of British insecurity (which it probably is). British prime minsters also tend to wish that they didn’t have to keep banging on about it, but they fear that if the “special relationship” doesn’t get a mention, the press will claim that Britain has sufffered a diplomatic downgrade on their watch. So every time we go through the SR rigmarole. 9am: NPR reports on the White House’s efforts to convey Obama’s “split-screen focus” on events at home while he travels abroad . Drinking Guinness in Moneygall was juxtaposed on TV news, it says, with footage of a Missouri town devastated by a tornado. 8.45am: Fresh from a Guinness-drinking embrace of his ancestral roots in Ireland, US president Barack Obama today continues his European tour with a state visit to Britain – a country some have suggested he was somewhat less keen on . You may remember when Obama’s gift of DVDs to Gordon Brown was seen as an ominous development in that perennial favourite of the British media, the state of the special relationship. But that’s all changed now, we are told. Not only are they to meet the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge but the US president and his wife will also receive a ceremonial welcome and state banquet at Buckingham Palace, to be followed with a speech to both houses of parliament and Downing Street barbecue. Obama and David Cameron have furthermore written a joint article in the Times declaring “Ours is not just a special relationship, it is an essential relationship – for us and for the world.” The two leaders will, of course, also hold political talks. Here are some of the main points likely to come out of the visit. • Deficit Cameron is hoping for an endorsement of the coalition’s deficit reduction plan, which will insulate him to an extent from Labour charges that the cuts are too deep and too fast (the Conservatives already claim that Obama’s own budget cuts are at a similar pace to Britain’s). Patrick Wintour’s report today says: “Privately, Conservative sources are increasingly confident that the Treasury and its American counterpart are now seeing eye to eye on deficit reduction after being at odds for some months” •  The “essential” relationship Officially upgraded from merely “special”, the set-piece development will be the announcement of a US-British national security council to work together on international challenges and share intelligence. An Obama administration official told Reuters it will help enable “a more guided, coordinated approach to analyse the ‘over the horizon’ challenges we may face in the future.” Libya, as Britain sends in attack helicopters , will feature in their talks, though Hillary Clinton said yesterday after talks with William Hague that the US “continues to fly 25% of all sorties” and wanted other Nato members to do more. •  Meeting the Queen And then there is the ceremony – visits to the royal art collection, meeting William and Kate, a 21 gun salute, a US presidential motorcade, a state banquet and – probably keenly observed – present giving. Barack Obama Simon Jeffery guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 24, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.