Charm, offensive

It is just as well for US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney that general elections are rarely decided on foreign policy. Not only do polls rate Barack Obama's foreign policy performance highly, Romney's charm offensive to seduce world leaders has so far been less charming and more offensive. The first leg of his jaunt took Romney to the UK, where he attended the opening ceremony at the London Olympics. Before he even landed in London, however, the Romney campaign had heralded the shape of things to come: by a controversial reference to his "Anglo-Saxon heritage", which, in contrast to Obama, supposedly makes him more appreciative of the so-called special relationship between the US and Britain.

It soon got worse. On Thursday, in a breach of protocol, Romney said that he had met the head of the MI6, the secretive British foreign intelligence agency — so secret that its existence was only officially acknowledged in 1994. Then, at a meeting with Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, he appeared to forget Miliband's name and addressed him as "Mr Leader". But perhaps he was merely distracted by the fallout from his ill-timed suggestion that London was not quite prepared to host the greatest show on earth days before it kicked off, ticking off British Prime Minister David Cameron and the British media. Next up for the blundering Romney: Israel.

Calling this maiden diplomatic outing a disaster might be overstating the case, but combined with Romney's muddled foreign policy speech at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention earlier this week, it points to a significant lack of preparedness on the part of a man aiming to become US president. Romney probably gambles on the fact that the election will be decided by how the economy performs, and his gaffe-strewn tour is unlikely to impact the outcome.

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