World

Barack Obama to visit Britain

by Amy Judd | June 27, 2008 at 05:22 pm

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Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be making a visit to Britain in July as part of what is being called an ambitious foreign tour that will also take him to Iraq, Afghanistan, France and Germany.

Only skeleton details of Mr Obama's trip have been agreed but an announcement of an outline programme is expected over the weekend.

"You will be hearing something very soon," a senior Obama aide told The Telegraph.

During Mr Obama's visit to Britain, likely to take place around the middle of July, he will call on Gordon Brown and, if time permits, David Cameron, the Conservative leader.

A fundraising event to attract campaign donations from wealthy Americans is also understood to be under consideration.

A recent Telegraph poll showed that Mr Obama is overwhelmingly preferred to Mr McCain in Britain and Europe.

Three times as many Britons said they would vote for him as those who indicated they would back Mr McCain, if able to cast a vote in the US election.

But Democratic strategists are concerned that scenes of "Obamamania" in Europe could damage the candidate back home.

In 2004, John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was mocked for "looking French" while in 2000, George W Bush turned his relative lack of foreign travel into a political asset.