This has been a month in which the “soft power” of our sovereign has been writ large. It is a good time to pause and reflect on the enormous advantages Britain’s monarchy brings to the country, and the sometimes overlooked sacrifices made by members of the Royal Family.

The American president has certainly made an impression on Britain. Obama is boosted by coverage on US networks looking relaxed and authoritative on the world stage. It does no harm being pictured with America's favourite British couple – not Dave and Nick, but the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Obama’s project to remake the U.S. image abroad has always relied, at its core, on his own against-the-odds story. And the adoring reception he received, from the public and its elected leaders, suggested the message still resonates here.

Along the sidewalks of Warsaw on Friday, as Poland prepared for a 24-hour visit by President Barack Obama, that change was most clearly seen in the divergent voices of the older and younger generations of Poles.

Why did Mr Obama risk stirring such bad blood between his administration and Israel’s, to no apparent diplomatic gain and at a time when the pro-Israeli lobby in America, already in pre-election mode, still wields so much clout?

What had been a challenge to US power is now a "historic opportunity", as Barack Obama put it in his Middle East speech last week. But he does not mean an opportunity for the people who have risen up; it is a chance for Washington to fashion the region's present and future, just as it did its past.

Paying homage to history, Obama saluted the English for developing the rule of law and the rights of citizens, values that he said inspired the United States and set a model for the world. With allied powers, he said, they built the modern global order.

...the United States is an economic and military powerhouse in a way that Britain is not...Britain has some strong historical relationships with a number of countries that the United States does not. And Britain...has so-called “soft power” that the United States might have been lacking in recent years.