Cameron and Obama on the phone: basic semiotics

Does your body language - or your surroundings - matter when you're on the phone?

Here's Obama talking to Cameron from the Oval Office:

And here's Cameron taking the call in Downing Street:

(from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream)

If the second photo wasn't from the Prime Minister's Office Flickr Stream, you'd think it was some kind of Photoshopped spoof put out by the Labour Party.

I mean, it's not just the dodgy armchair upholstery (though someone ought to give that some thought).

It's the little wobbly table with the trailing phone cable.

It's the biro.

And it's just the general feeling that if is the best Britain can do, who's going to take this country seriously?

If I were a visiting alien chief, I think I'd know which of these two people I should be talking to.

Policy proposal: increase national prestige by scrapping Trident and spending the savings on a better-looking office for the prime minister.