Barack Obama is right to offer his government's view on the EU referendum

My word, what a disgrace! What an outrage! Isn’t it deplorable that the President of the United States has the gall to offer an opinion on the merits of an argument that will have some significant impact on the future of one of the United States’ closest allies? The arrogance and sheer effrontery of the man!

Sheer piffle, of course, but it seems to be the case that those people who think the United Kingdom should leave the European Union are the tenderest, most easily-bruised, people in the realm. So it is unacceptable that Barack Obama should poke his nose into someone else’s business and suggest, in temperate terms, his country’s preference that Britain should remain a member of the EU.

Now Obama may be mistaken but that doesn’t deny him the right to express his government’s opinion. There is every difference between offering a view on a single-issue referendum and endorsing a given candidate in a normal general election.