Cameron gets his Obama time
By politics.co.uk staff
David Cameron has been given half an hour with American president Barack Obama during his trip to the UK for the G20 summit this week.
He will be the only opposition leader to meet the president during his trip to Europe, which will later stop off in France, Germany and the Czech Republic.
The two men have a less than perfect relationship.
They stand on either side of the ‘fiscal stimulus divide’, with Mr Cameron’s caution in marked contrast to the president’s calls for greater coordinated government action.
President Obama’s first meeting with the Conservative, in the summer of last year, left him “distinctly unimpressed”, according to a diplomatic source.
The source said the president emerged from the July meeting with the words: “What a lightweight.”
An informal conversation picked up by ABC News between Mr Cameron and president Obama in New Palace Yard revealed the Tory leader urging the Illinois senator to ‘take a break’.
Mr Cameron asked: “You should be on the beach… you need to be able to keep your head together… Do you have a break at all?”
