Who's special now?

I was reminded the other day of the Spartans who visited the court of King Cyrus the Great of Persia, demanding that he withdraw his forces from the territory of their Ionian allies, or else. But who, a bemused Cyrus asked one of his advisers, are these Spartans? A cruel brush-off for the most feared warriors in Greece, who fondly imagined that their fame had reached the four corners of the world.


Things weren't quite so bad for Gordon Brown in Washington this week: the American leadership had, it must be assumed, heard of Britain, and some must even have had a clue as to the identity of the prime minister. To judge by the pained, aching coverage in much of the British press, though, Barack Obama had managed to deliver a slap-down just as wounding to national pride. It was almost as though the White House had greeted our leader (who is not, after all, accustomed to receiving much in the way of adulatory treatment at home) with a bucket of green custard.

Telegraph journalists seem to have been particularly put out. Iain Martin was complaining the other day that the president had been "plain rude" to Britain by, for example, not giving him the honour of a full flag-draped press conference (something that the Japanese prime minister was not accorded either, incidentally, when he dropped by last week). Obama's "merely warmish words" left "a bitter taste with this Atlanticist", writes Martin, suggesting that next time the Americans ask Britain to send some more troops we should tell them to shove it. Toby Harnden, meanwhile, described "increasingly frantic" British officials practically begging the Yanks to show some respect:

"But this is not what we negotiated," said one plaintively, through the railings, to a supremely unconcerned Obama aide. Another talked of "fine tuning" that was still going on, just as a Secret Service agent on a loud hailer told him to move further away so the gate could be kept clear.

Harnden had previously written perceptively of the "crawlingly needy and obvious" attempts of the British government to ingratiate themselves with the Obama White House. And indeed it has been embarrassing to behold, combining traditional British presumptuousness about the "special relationship" (a phrase I for one can never hear without wincing) with the more understandable desire to associate Brown's almost literally bankrupt regime with the popularity and glamour of Barack and Michelle. The PM reminds me of Uma Thurman's G-Girl, one moment "saving the world", the next throwing sharks in a desperate bid for attention.

In perhaps the most mephitic of all these contributions, James Delingpole has decided that the only possible explanation for the new administration's coolness towards Brown lies in Michelle Obama's radical Black Power agenda:

Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade. Never mind that a white, Tory Englishman - William Wilberforce - brought the slave trade to an end. Judging by her record, Michelle does not make room for such subtle nuance.

Consider her notorious statement that: "For the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country."

Her country being - er - the United States of America...

Says Delingpole:

No matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain's friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.

Actually, it's the likes of Delingpole who are behaving like adolescent girls, whining when their crush-object doesn't reciprocate their devotion - or even have much idea it exists. Today has brought further evidence of such crazed stalker-like thinking. It was revealed that the present bestowed upon Brown by the president - a DVD box set of classic movies - hardly matched the British gift of a pen-holder fashioned out of the wood of a 19th century warship which, while it wasn't supporting colonial enterprises in Africa managed to intercept the occasional slave convoy. Oh, and there was also a multi-volume biography of Winston Churchill. Surely even the Foreign Office must have twigged by now that Obama couldn't care less about Churchill. I would have gone for a first edition of Origin of Species, myself. Far more appropriate, given the year.

Yes, the American present was rubbish. Usually, it's the British who specialise in giving mean gifts on such occasions. During a state visit to Slovenia last year the Queen was presented with a gold-encrusted tea service and a prize Lipizzaner stallion; the Slovenian president had to make do with a silver trinket box. When Nicolas Sarkozy visited Windsor Castle he gave the Queen a Lalique crystal sculpture of two horses and a rare 1743 volume by Louis XV's Inspector of Horses. The Queen gave Sarkozy a set of stamps: "proof copies of stamps issued in 2004 to mark the centenary of the 'Entente Cordiale'". How generous.

Besides, the White House was sufficiently rattled by the adverse coverage to issue a statement insisting that he had been "so touched by the gifts, he called Brown on board his private jet on Thursday to thank him". Private jet? We're assured that the pen-holder is now on proud display on the presidential desk - which was also made from a British warship. (Unlike their modern equivalents, superannuated warships from the age of sail can it seems be recycled into something useful.)

The unexpectedly modest reception given to Brown - worst of all, perhaps, was the contrast with the red-carpet treatment he got from the unloved George Bush - had many hacks puzzled. Was it post-colonial resentment from the half-Kenyan Obama, whose grandfather may or may not have been mistreated by the British authorities? Was it merely a pragmatic response to a changing world in which the most important foreign-policy priorities lie in Asia and the Middle East, and Britain - indeed Europe as a whole - scarcely matters? Or was it just - this is the "kindest" interpretation - just a symptom of the new administration still finding its feet, not knowing the proper form. The "proper form", of course, being to flatter visiting Brits with a combination of aw-shucks wonderment and forelock-tugging obsequiousness.

That may come in time. For today's other "special relationship" story concerns Mr Obama's forthcoming visit to Buckingham Palace. He's going to be in London in a few weeks' time as a consequence of Brown's success in persuading other world leaders to attend a summit there on the state of the economy (how on earth did he manage that one?). And it would be rather strange if the president didn't drop in on Her Maj - that really would have been a monumental snub. But this entirely expected development is being spun as some sort of diplomatic coup. The Times:

President Obama is expected to be granted an audience with the Queen when he comes to London next month for talks on global efforts to tackle the recession.

Such a move would be unusual, since President Obama will be in London not on a state visit..

Not unusual in the slightest. The only president to come on a state visit in living memory was George W Bush: but they've all met the Queen.

Plans are being discussed for President Obama to be granted an audience at Buckingham Palace on April 1, the day before the conference formally begins.

I hope it doesn't turn out to be a hoax.

Iain Martin, who somehow managed to sound grumpy even about the Obamas' charming gift of toy helicopters for the Brown children, now detects that the president is, after all, ready to bend the knee to the Great White Queen:

Note how the coolness of Team Obama disappears when a bit of regal glamour is introduced into the equation. He might not like the Brits, but he can recognise a global superstar when he encounters one. He wants to be associated with her. He's shameless.

Please. Let's jack in this "special relationship" tripe. It's undignified and counterproductive. And, frankly, if Obama couldn't give two hoots for Great Britain, there's no particular reason why he should. Certainly not the fact that the UK government enthusiastically joined George W Bush's ill-omened intervention in Iraq. Nor does the fact that most British people were enthusiastically cheering him on last November amount to a debt of gratitude: so was most of the world. So he's just not that into us? Get over it.

There are "special relationships" between the United States and Britain, of course. On an official level there are close intelligence and military links between the two countries. And there are a host of informal ties, too, based largely on language. But there is no reason why Britain and the United States ought to be particularly close. The founding myths of the American republic portray the struggle of a band of selfless patriots against an oppressive and effete British Empire, with improbable tyrants George III and Lord North (hardly Hitler, were they?) grinding the Colonists under their privileged heel. Throughout the nineteenth century the relationship was wary and mutually resentful, and in the Twentieth, even during World War II, tended to be one of convenience.

Even at the best of times, American Anglophilia was unreal and more than a little ridiculous. It was the affectation of an elite, resembling the Hellenism of Roman aristocrats who filled their homes with (frequently looted) Greek statuary in an attempt to be cultural, and kept the heirs of Plato and Aristotle as household slaves to tutor their children. It was ghastly and snobbish, and reached a fitting end in the spectacle of cricket-loving "Sir" Allen Stanford being feted at Lord's. Worst of all, some in Britain began to see ourselves through the eyes of such American fantasies, as a land of pheasant shooting aristos, Oxbridge wits and perfectly dressed gents. Beyond keeping Merchant Ivory in business it's hard to see what benefit this folie à deux has brought to Britain - or to America. If the Obama presidency sinks it for ever, that would be no bad thing.