Barack Obama and David Cameron: the Ostensible Relationship

Farr, M

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-72276-0_16

Barack Obama and David Cameron: the Ostensible Relationship

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Martin Farr

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Abstract

No president was less, and no prime minister more, typical, than Barack Obama and David Cameron. The 44^th President of the United States was the first African-American, while the 70^th Prime Minister was the nineteenth to have attended Eton and the twenty seventh to have graduated from Oxford. Obama's and Cameron's relationship is significant as their periods as heads of government were close to being contiguous. The ascension of each to the highest office appeared effortlessly assured; both owed their position to uncommon loquacity on very public platforms, fifteen months apart: Obama on 27 July 2004 in Boston, Cameron on 4 October 2005 in Blackpool. The careers of each ended in failure. the date always known to Obama, less predictably for Cameron. While Obama’s peremptory loss of legacy hardly his personal responsibility, no Prime Minister could be more personally blamed for their loss of office than David Cameron. Their relationship saw renewed concerns raised about the special relationship and the alleged Anglophobia of the President. The two shared major foreign policy failures, including Libya and Syria. As over the Europe Referendum in June 2016, the choreography of the relationship was pronounced.