Obama in London: A British Perspective

It was Liebe in Berlin, amour in Paris. In London, too, love was all around when Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama arrived for the final meeting on the final leg of his world tour. The Illinois senator turned up at the Houses of Parliament an hour before Dane Drummond was due to marry his sweetheart Pricina Benjamin in the chapel there. The couple set the date months before and hadn't anticipated sharing their joy with a gaggle of press and campaign staff. Mark Anthony, one of the tail-coated ushers, was underwhelmed by the prospect of glimpsing Obama. "Politicians all stand for a lot before they get elected," he said. "There's not going to be any change."

But this wasn't a day for cynicism. "We want change," chanted members of the crowd gathered outside parliament's wrought-iron gates as London experienced its own small outbreak of Obama-mania. The message was meant for Obama but his host, David Cameron, the leader of Britain's resurgent Conservative party could have been forgiven for thinking the sentiment was addressed to him. His slogan is "Time for Change," and with the Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown buffeted by three successive by-election defeats, the loss of London's City Hall, sliding poll ratings and dissent within his own ranks, Cameron has a definite spring in his step.

The choreography of Obama's visit may have been conceived for voters back in the United States but it laid bare the underlying trends of British politics. The senator's first tete-a-tete of the day was not with Brown but with Tony Blair, ostensibly to discuss Middle East politics (Blair is the special envoy to the region for the Quartet — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the U.S.). Obama's trip was designed to burnish his foreign affairs credentials, but breakfast with Britain's former Prime Minister also offered a rare opportunity for Obama to break bread with someone Americans might actually recognize.

Then it was on to Downing Street, and a two-hour slot with Brown for a weighty two-hour discussion — Iraq, Afghanistan, the global economy and climate change were all on the agenda — and a brief stroll on the edge of neighboring St James's Park, quickly abridged on the advice of the security services. "I like to escape sometimes," Obama told journalists encamped on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. "We all like to escape from Gordon," said a British pressman, loudly.

The travails of the Prime Minister were evidently known to Obama. "You're always more popular before you're actually in charge," said the senator. "Once you're responsible, you're going to make some people unhappy." This was his graceful answer to a question about his own soaring popularity in Europe — a recent poll suggested that if Britons were voting in the presidential election, they'd favor him by five to one over his Republican rival John McCain. Members of the Labour party hope that Brown will draw inspiration from the U.S. election campaign, which has done so much to stimulate public involvement in the democratic process. An injection of Obama-style popularity couldn't come too soon for Brown, either.

David Lammy, one of two black ministers in the Labour government, used a recent lecture to advocate establishing primary-style elections in the U.K. and finding ways to open up the political process to greater diversity. "The significant thing about both McCain and Obama is that they both came from outside the political establishment," he said. Lammy knows his subject: a personal friend of Obama's, he broke the convention which keeps British politicians from endorsing candidates in foreign elections for fear of backing the wrong horse. Lammy has actually helped to campaign for Obama and joined him at Downing Street for the meeting with Brown. It was "powerful, especially seeing the teams [of advisers] getting together," said Lammy afterwards. He added that Obama "is unbelievably relaxed. He clearly thrives on this intense schedule."

Maybe so, but at Obama's final sitdown of the day with the Tory leader, he admitted to planning a week's r&r in August and the two men compared notes on strategies for handling the pressures of high office. "Somebody who used to be in the White House told me you have to set aside big chunks of time when all you are doing is thinking," said Obama. "If you fail to do that, you start making mistakes or you lose the big picture." Amid all the love, it could be easy to lose your bearings too. As Obama said his final goodbyes, the crowd cheered and hollered and the whole wedding party, even the skeptical usher, waved him on his way.