Obama has to get his act together for some change we can believe in

In his actions to date, though, President Obama is acting much more like Senator Obama, he with the spectacularly left-wing voting record, than like Candidate Obama, the classical centrist he portrayed himself as once Hillary had been despatched

PRESIDENT Barack Obama flew into London last night on his first foreign trip since taking office. To say British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pleased to be the first foreign head of government to host The Big O is an understatement. Downing Street will have forgiven and forgotten that the White House didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet the last time the two leaders met.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen gave Obama a bowlful of weeds when he went to Washington but Brown took a pen fashioned from the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet and a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s monumental biography of Winston Churchill. He got a boxed DVD set of “classic American movies” in return. If Brown had a sense of humour, he would repay the compliment this time by wrapping up a few old Stevie Wonder CDs.