IF Barack Obama was struggling to understand the tonal shift in Britain marked by the departure of the earnest Gordon Brown and the arrival of the breezy David Cameron, he need do no more than contrast the presents given to him by the two prime ministers.
Where Brown ordered a politically correct ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet, Samantha Cameron just popped out to her old shopping grounds in Notting Hill. Her husband handed over a painting by ex-hoodie Ben Eine, some scented candles for Michelle Obama from the perfumier Miller Harris, and for the kids some pink and purple Hunter boots.
A devastated Johnnie Boden must be tearing up his catalogue at failing to make the list.
The Camerons' choice of the ultra-contemporary Eine and his painting 21st century city, a collection of spray- painted, multicoloured letters on doorfronts in and around east London valued at £2,500, shows Cameron's continued willingness to hug a hoodie who has gone astray.
In an interview with the Observer, Eine admitted he had been arrested 20 times for spraying graffiti on walls, the kind of vandalism that the Eric Pickles of this world so much disapprove.
He told the paper “I was brought up in south London and I started out in the world of graffiti when I was about 14 because I wanted to be part of that hooded tracksuit gang thing. I did it pretty hardcore for about 20 years — I've been arrested 15 and 20 times, and the last time I had a close escape from prison.”
The picture will look great in the Roosevelt room, alongside the staid portraits of Lincoln. Samantha Cameron, exhausted with a fourth child due in September, was not herself present to hand over the present, or to receive presents from the Obamas.
In a complex diplomatic tit for tat, the Obamas returned the gift with a picture of their own a signed colour lithograph by the Nebraskan Edward Ruscha, entitled Column with Speed Lines.
This apparently resembles a single column government building with horizons in red white and blue, the colours of both the US and UK flags.
— The Guardian, London