Monday, June 28, 2010

David Cameron and Barack Obama swap their beers at G20


David Cameron and Barack Obama cemented their special relationship at the G20 summit - by hitting the bottle.

The Prime Minister and the US President swapped beers on Saturday ahead of the talks in Toronto.

It was a jokey reference to a bet they'd made on the result of the England vs USA World Cup match two weeks ago.

That game ended in a draw, so they both paid up. Mr Cameron handed over 12 bottles of Hobgoblin, made in his Witney constituency, while Mr Obama gave him 24 bottles of Goose Island 312 from his home city of Chicago.

Afterwards Mr Obama said: "We already, I think, have established a strong working relationship and we are confident that the special relationship is only going to get stronger."

But he could not avoid a mention of the USA team's shock defeat of England in the 1950 World Cup.

Their camaraderie could not hide the differences between Britain and the USA over the economy.

A final communique from the G20 was carefully worded to paper over the divisions on how to tackle the global crisis. Mr Cameron has urged other countries to slash spending and raise taxes to reduce the deficit. But the Americans have argued that nations risk a double dip recession if they pull the plug on spending too quickly


Us Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said emergency assistance for the global economy, agreed at past summits, must not be withdrawn too soon. He said: "The scars of this crisis are still with us."

As the debate hotted up inside the venue in the Canadian city, trouble flared outside.

Angry demonstrators wearing black balaclavas broke away from a crowd of peaceful protesters, setting fire to police vehicles and smashing windows with baseball bats and hammers.

Police used shields, clubs, tear gas and pepper spray to push back the rioters, some of whom hurled bottles at them. There were more than 400 arrests.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair said: "We have never seen that level of wanton criminality and vandalism and destruction on our streets."

CASH IN

The G20 nations agreed to force banks to set aside money to prevent a "Lehman-style" meltdown and the need for a taxpayers' bail-out.

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