Chronology: Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and the Queen

June 8, 2009 (LPAC)-- July 25, 2008: Presidential candidate (and U.S. Senator) Obama, in London, snubbed Prime Minister Gordon Brown by first meeting privately with former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair and Obama reportedly discussed the Middle East, on which, many sources report, Blair advises Obama, as he does on climate change.

The Daily Telegraph reported that "officially Downing Street [i.e., Prime Minister Gordon Brown] maintains that they are relaxed about the Democratic senator's schedule. But privately they are dismayed that Mr. Blair has upstaged his successor." But the Telegraph also quoted David Lammy, a Blairite government minister and friend of Obama, that "Obama is showing that the political messages and methods of the 1990s now look very tired," in implicit criticism of Brown. A Briton of African descent with a degree from Obama's Harvard law School, Lammy had acted as a political hit-man for Tony Blair against opponents of the Iraq War.

October 2008: Queen Elizabeth put Obama's friend David Lammy on the Privy Council.

November 4, 2008: Obama was elected President.

November 8, 2008: David Lammy gave the keynote speech at a Fabian Society special conference on Obama's election (America Votes, Europe Responds). Other speakers on the Royal axis to Obama were Obama staffer Bill Brandzel; Baroness Shirley Williams, Emeritus Harvard Professor, widow of the founder of the Kennedy School of Government; and Robert Cooper, Blair's strategist for the "new imperialism" and a close associate of Obama financial sponsor George Soros.

February 5, 2009: Tony Blair and newly inaugurated President Obama were the keynote speakers at the National Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the British imperial Fellowship Foundation. The President and the ex-prime minister gushed with praise for each other. The London Guardian reported, "Barack Obama makes Tony Blair his unofficial 'first friend' .... It will not go unnoticed that Blair has beaten Gordon Brown to meet President Obama."

March 3-4, 2009: Obama pointedly snubbed Prime Minister Brown during the Prime Minister's first visit to Washington. Obama did not give Brown the usual reception at Andrews Air Force Base, cancelled a scheduled Rose Garden joint press conference, and then staged a brief meeting with the press in which he kept Brown silent for several minutes, and then joked about how bad their relationship was.

April 1, 2009: Barack Obama and his wife Michele met with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace, with great deference and celebrated embraces.

June 1, 2009: White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama wants Queen Elizabeth to be included in ceremonies honoring the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France. (Later, Prince Charles was invited as her representative.)