Palace tour for Obama girls

Michelle Obama is getting a reputation for calling in favours that would make Peter Mandelson blush. Bringing her two young daughters, Malia and Sasha, to London and Paris last week, it turns out she left no stone unturned - nor any 'contact' uncontacted - in her effort to make the sightseeing trip go with a swing.

In Paris, lunch was courtesy of the Sarkozy-Brunis at the Elysee Palace - not a bad result for a ten-year-old girl and her eight-year-old sister. But this was nothing compared with what their mother had cooked up in London, having put in the groundwork in April when she accompanied Barack Obama to the G20 shindig.

Her friends Gordon and Sarah Brown at 10 Downing Street (above, how quaint!) helped organise for the girls to see the Houses of Parliament. Then there was a phone call to Jo Rowling (that's JK Rowling to the rest of us), whom she first met at a ladies' power lunch at No 10. Jo was able to organise an exclusive trip to the film studios near Watford where they're making Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

But Michelle's piece de resistance came after a message to her new best friend The Queen (a phone call? an email? a text message? We will probably never know) which, the Sunday Telegraph reported, secured a private tour of Buck House.

This relationship dates back, of course, to the meeting between the Obamas and the Queen and Prince Philip at the time of the G20 visit, when Michelle O and Liz R were photographed with their arms around each other, being unusually pally for two first ladies, however special the relationship between Britain and the US.

The Queen was reported to have said at the time, "Now we have met, would you please keep in touch". And Michelle, it seems, took her at her word. As a Washington watcher told The First Post: "Forget Michelle the fist-punching 'black power' First Lady; what you're seeing here is the queen bee American soccer mom in action." ·