BARACK OBAMA and Michael Jackson are to perform a duet for the World’s leaders ahead of the G20 dinner at 10 Downing Street tonight.
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“What better way to introduce the world to London than to have the most talked about performer in history join Michael on stage?” said a spokesperson for Jackson today.
In a bid to calm the waters of the fractious economic talks, the pair are to entertain power brokers and their partners with Jackson’s classic about racial harmony, Ebony and Ivory.
For “security reasons” aides have so far refused to say which of the two is best qualified to take the ‘Ebony’ part.
“It’s a pretty cool gig that I’m hugely excited about,” said TV chef Jamie Oliver, the leaders’ cook for the evening. “But where are the British ingredients?”
That’s where London’s musical mayor Boris Johnson comes in.
Jackson’s 1980s hit Beat It has been earmarked as the song for the Jackson/Johnson/Obama trio, a humourous retort to the bankers who have brought the global system so close to financial ruin.
The plan was to have all three enter the proceedings on board goats, to symbolise Obama’s roots and the rich world’s umbilical connection to the rural poor.
But the American President’s team is understandably reluctant to allow their man to be seen backing a bail-out for starving farmers, given the trillions he has already donated to the hard-up super-rich.
“It would be nice to say that things are moving in the right direction under President Obama,” said Johnson.
“It would be nice to think that the world’s most famous son of a Kenyan goatherd is going to do something to help Kenyan goatherds.”
“But if all else fails, I’ll just have to make do with a game of the old wiff-waff with [China President] Hu Jintao.”
The G20 banquet takes place this evening, 1 April.
