Obama’s victory is a great solace to No. 10, and they will exploit it to the full

Four years ago, in opposition, the Cameron offices were a swing state in the US election. Most were for Obama but there was still a sizable number who held a torch for John McCain. But this time round it is hard to think of anyone in Downing Street who wanted a Romney win. I asked several people in No. 10 who would have voted for Romney, but only one name ever came up.

The idea of a Tory Downing Street urging on a Democratic President would come as a shock to those who served in the Thatcher and Major governments. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had common foes at home and abroad. But it would be a mistake to think that the relationship between Tories and the Republican party went into decline when they both left office. Instead, it got even closer.

In 1992, the Major government provided such help to George H.W. Bush’s re-election campaign that Bill Clinton held it against Britain for the first half of his presidency. This led to one of the postwar low points in the special relationship: the decision to grant Gerry Adams a US visa in 1994, before the Sinn Fein leader had renounced violence.

When both parties were in opposition, they still looked to each other for help. William Hague and his team paid a reverential visit to George W. Bush when he was still governor of Texas and considering a tilt at the presidency.

Even today, the Tories and Republicans are sister parties — they’re both members of the International Democratic Union. The then Tory chairman Baroness Warsi led a sizable delegation to the Republican convention this September. There might not be the same intellectual exchange between the two parties as there was in the 1980s, but the ‘compassionate conservatism’ agenda is still a direct import from the States.