US is lagging behind in female power stakes, says Ellen DeGeneres

America is lagging behind the rest of the world in having its share of strong female leaders, Ellen DeGeneres said.

The US TV personality was flanked by her wife Portia de Rossi who said she was "all for it" when asked what she felt about women seizing the reins of power in the UK.

DeGeneres joked: "I'm so mad, I'm against all women in power - I hate it."

Continuing, she said: "It's fantastic obviously. It seems like the whole world is ahead of us with things like that.

"Everyone else has women leaders and we're for some reason like 'oh can she do it?'"

Of the possibility the next US president might be Hillary Clinton, she added: "We're very pro Hillary - we love Hillary."

DeGeneres was joined by stars including Dominic West, The Great British Bake Off 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain and Britain's Got Talent presenter Alesha Dixon at the UK premiere of Finding Dory in London's Leicester Square.

The popular US talk show host is lending her voice to the amnesiac Dory in the sequel to the hugely popular Finding Nemo, while West is teaming up with his The Wire co-star Idris Elba to bring to life a pair of soporific sea lions.

Former British Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington and Tom Daley, who will be representing Great Britain in Rio 2016, were also present to support their #JustKeepMoving campaign - a reference to the film's motivational tag line, 'just keep swimming'.

DeGeneres also spoke out following the recent spate of deadly shootings in the US, where two black men and five police officers were killed in the last week.

She said: "I think obviously something needs to be done, everybody needs to start respecting one another, in every area.

"There's too much carelessness and disrespect and a lot of things need to change."

A tanned-looking West posed for selfies with fans and said it was "great" to be reunited with his co-star and "good friend" Elba, from the US crime drama The Wire.

He said the UK's current political climate was "dire" but, like the film's ever-positive Dory, he was keeping optimistic.

"I obviously don't like what's happened, but as everybody says we go on and maybe the chaos will throw up something good.

"Hopefully it will throw up something good and hopefully we won't throw up lots of bad things, like far-right groups."

The animation welcomes back to the big screen the forgetful blue tang Dory who embarks on an adventure with clown fish Nemo and Marlin to try to find her long-lost family.

The film's trailer, which included two women with a pram, sparked speculation from fans that Pixar/Disney had included a same-sex couple in the animation.

But DeGeneres quashed the speculation, saying: "I hadn't looked for that and I'm pretty good at spotting lesbians so I thought I should have seen it.

"I think it was just a woman with a short hair cut. I think they assumed everyone with short hair is a lesbian - that's a bad assumption."

:: Finding Dory opens in UK cinemas on July 29.