Brown meets with US Presidential candidates

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he is "absolutely confident" he can work with any of the three candidates for US president, after talks in Washington.

He has met Democrat front-runner Barack Obama, party rival Hillary Clinton and Republican contender John McCain.

Mr Brown is also to hold talks on the global credit crunch with President Bush before a joint press conference.

Subjects including Iraq, Afghanistan and climate change are expected to be on the agenda.

BBC News

Americans on the board will be forgiven for not realising the British Prime Minister is in Washington - the Pope seems to have stolen the lime light!

How will the US-UK relationship change after Bush leaves office? Will it depend on which candidate wins? Will it change at all? It seems that Brown and the Foreign Office are making a concerted effort to keep in with the US - Brown already knows Hillary Clinton and John McCain, and this was his first meeting with Barak Obama.

My prediction is that things will remain strong. The US and the UK are working together on so many issues of mutual benefit... Afghanistan, Iraq, the economic troubles, Iran and so forth. There are strong business links between both nations too.

I'm not sure what kind of a difference a Republican or a Democrat president will make - I know Labour are traditionally closer to the Democrats and the Conservatives are traditionally closer to the Republicans, but it generally doesn't make a big difference (see Bush-Blair, MacMillan-Kennedy or Churchill-Roosevelt).

And by co-incidence the Pope is over in the states also......

I heard during the press conference he was asked to give his feelings, which Brown should of refused to comment on. Both BBC and Skynews reported Brown (stupidly) gave very praising words to John McCain in public...which might be seen as him sticking his nose in the US election

( I'll search around the US papers )

The body language was very interesting during these meetings - brown seemed to get on very well with obama, clinton looked disinterested, and it looked as though brown and mcclain didn't much trust each other.

But that's just my take on it.

Brown might be hard for the americans to figure out - he's much more reserved than blair, and appears less media-savvy (although I'm pretty sure this is not the case)

Time will tell I suppose.

No offense to Ste2652
I fail to see how iraq and afghanistan are area's of "mutual benefit"

IMO both are harming our country and international relations - apart from our relationship with the US.

[edit on 18/4/2008 by budski]

reply to post by budski


Mutual concern, I suppose I meant. Though I'd question your stance on Afghanistan. 67 British citizens died on 9/11... and the group that carried out the attacks had numerous training camps in Afghanistan. Should we have left them alone when our own citizens and those of our close allies were murdered? I think not.

Mutual concern perhaps - I'm not a CTer when it comes to 911, I'm more what you might call an open minded skeptic and I'm not going to go down the conspiracy road.

However, OBL consistently denied any participation in 911 - which I find strange. Terrorists are usually eager to shout these things from he rooftops.

Then there's the whole Iraq debate and WMD's.

I understand your point, I just think that the issue is a little more complicated, and that things aren't as clear cut as we have been led to believe.

But that's a conversation for another time.