"Barack Obama is so much more appealing to the British."

To a middle-class, liberal-minded white in this country, Obama seems to fit the bill. The physical appearance is very important. He is black but, as Colin Powell once joked about himself, "not that black".

He fulfils none of the subliminal caricatures of black men, such as the angry youth who (as Obama himself notes) makes a woman want to clutch her bag tight when he gets into the lift. He is tall and slim and handsome, but not too masculine.