The speech was not a classic but Barack Obama’s address to both Houses of Parliament
covered the bases today. He started with a winning line, remarking that the previous three speakers in Westminster Hall had been the Pope, the Queen and Nelson Mandela which is either “a very
high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke.”
As is traditional in these kinds of speeches, Obama paid tribute to the special relationship, lauding it as the embodiment of the values and beliefs of the English-speaking tradition. He went on to say that both the British and the Americans knew that the “longing for human dignity is universal.” Indeed, at times Obama sounded remarkably like the last president as he proclaimed his own freedom agenda. When he said that the two countries must “stand squarely on the side of those who want to be free” one was reminded of Bush’s second inaugural.
When it came to the economy, Obama was less interesting; one could sympathise with Ken Clarke who the cameras caught nodding off again. Yet the president’s point that we live in a ‘global economy largely of our own making’ was a welcome counter to the over-done predictions of western decline.
At the end, the audience rose to, as Obama himself put it, “the grandson of a Kenyan cook who served in the British army who now stands before you as President of the United States.”
This state visit winds down with the special relationship reaffirmed and, I suspect, both Cameron and Obama’s domestic political standing boosted. To borrow a phrase, it is mission accomplished for both leaders.
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