At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, and at the UN Security Council meeting before that, Barack Obama continued his administration’s new policy toward Great Britain: declare that the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. is as strong as ever, and then act as if there is no such relationship at all.

The British papers were filled with the news that the president would not grant Prime Minister Gordon Brown a one-on-one meeting. “Mr. Obama had refused five separate requests from the prime minister for a private meeting during his U.S. trip for the UN summit in New York,” reported the Daily Mail.