What Obama was really doing on Downing Street (and no, he and Rishi aren’t starting a podcast)

The former US president is well missed, writes Sean O’Grady. But he wasn’t in town this time round to talk trade or to organise a global coup and restore a more rational style of political debate. More’s the pity…

Barack Obama might be slightly greyer now than when he was in office, but this graceful, elegant and courteous statesman is well remembered as a friend to Britain (PA Wire)

I wonder how many people felt a pang of nostalgia as they saw the pictures of Barack Obama striding down Downing Street to pay a “courtesy visit” to the prime minister. It’s the correct description. God, we miss him.

Just for a fleeting moment, don’t you find yourself thinking about how much better the world would be now with Obama in charge – and not his aged understudy? At 62, he is the youngest living former president – and by some margin more youthful in every way than Joe Biden and Donald Trump (whose childishness doesn’t count).

Age isn’t everything (and ageism is an evil) – but the point is that Obama was an inspirational, articulate and principled figure who will probably still be so when he reaches his ninth decade. It is, indeed, an uncomfortable reminder of the “Hobson’s choice” that the American people find themselves presented with come November.

Obama might be slightly greyer now than when he was in office, but this graceful, elegant and courteous statesman is well remembered as a friend to Britain – and someone who enjoyed an especially warm rapport with the late Queen Elizabeth.

The old nonsense about the bust of Churchill in the Oval Office, amplified by some vile stuff Boris Johnson knocked out about it, feels especially shameful at this distance.

Johnson was (and is) as grubby a human being as Obama was (and is) noble, as exemplified in this passage from Johnson’s dog-whistle article which appeared in The Sun newspaper: “Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

In fact, the bust was a loan to President George W Bush (another ex-president whom Trump makes look like JFK). It’s also correct to say that Obama’s loaded comments before the Brexit referendum on a trip to see David Cameron may have been tactically unwise – even counterproductive – yet they proved prescient.

How so? Well, Obama warned the British that we’d be at the “back of the queue” for a free trade deal with America – and so it has indeed proved. Trump didn’t give us one, Biden hasn’t – and neither they nor an institutionally protectionist Congress will do so in the coming years.

Obama might have been wrong to say it but he was right. (It also won’t make any difference if Nigel Farage is made ambassador to Washington – or, even more improbably, US ambassador to London.)

Which brings us to his visit to Downing Street this week. Obama wasn’t – unfortunately – in town this time around to talk trade or organise a global coup and restore a more rational style of political debate, though that would be one conspiracy theory worth subscribing to and supporting. After all, Donald Trump (in his less lucid moments) seems to think either that he’s running against Obama or that Obama defeated Biden in a past presidential election... or maybe the other way around.

He wasn’t there, sadly (?) to record a new podcast with the PM, either. No, Obama dropped in on Sunak to talk about his foundation – and the pair no doubt exchanged views on everything from Ukraine to Artificial Intelligence over the course of an hour or two.

One hopes he gave Sunak some wise counsel. The prime minister could certainly do with some.

If only Obama were in a position to do anything more substantial. As an informal visit in an election year, the traditional handshake with the PM was wisely dispensed with – but the very sight of Obama outside the famous black door is enough to trigger memories of a better yesterday.