Obama and a very PC hand-picked audience

IT was billed as the chance for ordinary young Britons to quiz the President of the United States.

But many of the audience for the question and answer session with Barack Obama were anything but runof-the-mill, appearing instead to have been carefully selected for their political correctness.

Guests included an Iraqi refugee, a Muslim student who considers themself ‘nonbinary’ – neither male or female – and a multi-millionaire property developer with his pop star wife.

Also there was a woman who had volunteered at the Jungle migrant camp in Calais, Benedict Cumberbatch and his wife, Bank of England governor Mark Carney and musician Annie Lennox.

Many of the 500 present at the ‘town hall’ style meeting in London on Saturday were said to have been hand picked by the US Embassy in Britain.

The majority, however – who said they received a call from the White House last week – were aged between 18 and 30 and were selected by ballot from the US Embassy’s Young Leaders UK programme or invited from sixth-form colleges visited by US Ambassador Matthew Barzun.

But critics accused Mr Obama’s team of trying to be too politically correct in its selection of diverse audience members and said they did not accurately reflect the make-up of Britain.

Charities and organisations represented included the Amos Bursary, which gives young black men scholarships for university and leadership training, and the AntiTribalism Movement, founded in 2010 to fight clan-based discrimination in the UK and in Somalia.

Representatives of the Renaissance Foundation, which aims to help young carers, were also there.

The Q&A session at the Royal Horticultural Halls in central London came hot on the heels of Mr Obama’s controversial intervention on the EU debate.

The US president has been criticised for wading into the Brexit row, warning the UK would have to wait up to a decade for a trade deal with America if it quits the EU. But there were no questions on Europe on Saturday. Instead Mr Obama was quizzed on the Northern Ireland peace process, Somalia and equality for gay and transgender people.

Conservative MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire Philip Davies said the guests did not accurately reflect today’s Britain.

‘Everybody knows Obama can only deliver a speech that is scripted for him,’ he said. ‘It seems he is also only able to answer questions from people who have also been selected and scripted for him.

‘I don’t think the audience represented Britain. As far as I am aware, nobody from Shipley was invited or was in the audience – though I am happy to be corrected if they were.’

After Mr Obama spent time with the Queen and enjoyed dinner with Prince William, his wife, Kate, and his brother, Prince Harry at Kensington Palace, the question and

‘Didn’t represent Britain’

answer event was billed as a chance for the president to meet ‘ordinary Britons’.

But as well as the diverse and apparently carefully selected young campaigners, a number of celebrities were also spotted in the crowd.

Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch was there with his theatre director wife, Sophie Hunter. Baroness Karren Brady, vice-chairman of West Ham Football Club and star of The Apprentice, was also present.

Controversial property tycoon Nick Candy sat with his wife, former Neighbours actress and singer Holly Valance. Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox, who was also there, wrote on Twitter yesterday: ‘Such a privilege to witness President Obama speaking to a gathering of young people in London yesterday.’

Mr Obama opened the hourlong discussion with a speech in which he called on people to ‘reject pessimism and cynicism’ and ‘know that progress is possible and problems can be solved’.

Although he did not refer directly to his controversial remarks that a post-Brexit Britain would be at the ‘back of the queue’ when it came to American trade deals, Mr Obama said that generally such economic agreements were difficult due to ‘parochial’ interests and ‘factions’ within countries.