Guantanamo

David Cameron’s colleague in world affairs, President Obama, probably knows how it feels to have to perform a humiliatingly public about-turn on an important issue. On the campaign trail in 2008, one of Obama’s key promises was to close Guantanamo Bay prison, after details emerged about the various human rights violations occuring there. But it’s 2013 and the prison is still open. Obama is still keen to close the facility but faces repeated resistance from his own party, as well as his voters, who are not keen to get an influx of terrorists onto American soil. Despite pledges that it would close in 2009 and then in 2010, Obama faces a long struggle to fulfil his election promise, and there have been all manner of flip-flops along the way.