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Our Prime Minister must’ve been really banging on about the “Special Relationship” between the US and UK recently, as he’s about to become the first non-US world leader to get a free ride aboard Air Force One with the President.
The trip will cover a 70-minute flight between Washington and Ohio, with Obama keen to fly Cameron out to see a basketball game. Which could be seen as a flattering informal date between the two leaders, or perhaps a sign that Obama doesn’t want to have his fun spoiled and plans interrupted by having to hang around with Cameron all day.
The private aircraft, which is one of two refitted Boeing 747-200B planes used by the US President, comes with a state room, conference room and presidential office. We wonder if Cameron will be trusted with the password for the Wi-Fi, which is surely the ultimate modern test of any Special Relationship? [Guardian]
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The headline on the BBC website this morning is “Cameron and Obama hail relations”, I read it as “Cameron and Obama had relations” and thought they were breaking an international sex scandal.
… and joining the Mile High club at the same time.
I immediately thought of Little Britain Abroad.
And with that comment you’ve just become the poster boy for the Tea Party.
Jesus H. Diaz! the Tea Party are scary enough without putting me on their posters.
Using public funds to watch a basketball game. How is Obama getting away with this? Just imagine if Cameron was using public funds to go watch a game somewhere.
Every single aspect of Cameron’s life is publicly funded. Maybe Obama is footing the bill – or maybe the UK tax payer is – who knows?
Well to be fair, I guess he does use the plane to travel throughout the country for security reasons… a crazy motorcade to take them from Washington to Ohio would have been a bit hard to justify in itself. Plus, isn’t the 747 almost like a mobile whitehouse?
What I meant is taking a plane to watch a game is what millionares do, with their own money and not the public’s money. But he is entitled to have his break, and security is a must. Are there no basketball games in DC?
Following a team?
I’m no sport fan myself, but I can’t think that you would want to go and see say Man U if you were a Liverpool supporter or something.
I completely agree with you there, however that’s where I think the Americans are very different to the Europeans in that there’s very little Obama or any Americian President can do that’s truly private. Where he goes, serious levels of security follows.
As for the basketball game, I have no idea – but I don’t think so, either way this one happens to be for the NBA finals!
That said, I don’t see why they couldn’t have taken the smaller, but still very sophisticated Marine 1 helicopter instead?
Probably not enough privacy for the full mile high experience
“The private aircraft,”
Am I taking that in the wrong context? Surely the US public “owns” it?
Probably means the kind of ‘private’ that you most likely will never get to see the inside of it unless you’re in the American Govt.
Don’t think it was meant as privately owned by the President
Don’t fall for this nonsense.
Obama is facing an election later this year in which some of the Republican Party’s few successful attacks on him has been his alleged left-wing tendencies, his frequent laws which look an awful lot like socialism-lite, and his perceived abandonment of the “special relationship” and the Anglosphere. It does Obama well to be seen with the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom therefore. [And look forward to him once-again highlighting his 1/32nd Irish heritage very soon. Incidentally, he's 14/32nds British.....]
In reality, the Obamas’ (Mr and Mrs) outright contempt for Britain is well documented and historic – as partially demonstrated by, as one of his first actions after taking office, his sending back to London the Churchill bust which used to sit in the White House since being gifted to the US Presidency by the British Government.
But, thanks to the Mad Hatters’ Tea Party and the various religious extremists or corrupt morons running for the GOP ticket, he’ll win a second term by default.