Grading Obama’s visit

It was a good state visit. Actually, it has been an excellent visit. Much better than George W Bush’s and even Barack Obama’s 2009 trip to London. The US president got his photo with Wills ‘n’ Kate. The Prime Minister got his presidential high-fives.

There were some odd points. The personal chemistry between David Cameron and Barack Obama made the ping-pong match better than it would naturally have been. For, let’s be honest, table tennis is not a natural US-UK sport. There were policy differences between the two leaders too, for example on Libya and deficit reduction.

In the end, though, the way to judge visits is not to think about Evening Standard covers or how much of the Today programme was devoted to the US president, but to look at strategic issues. The question to ask is simple: what will matter in five years, after the current electoral cycles have passed?

This visit had two such issues.