Mr Brown Goes to Washington, Hoping for Obama Bounce

When Barack Obama visited No 10 last June there was embarrassment as it transpired that an American aide had left gifts intended for Gordon Brown on the presidential candidate's plane.

This week, Brown's political needs do not include forgetful manners. At the very least Downing Street aides need Obama to rejuvenate the prime minister, describing Brown's visit like a trip to a spa: "The trip will be good for him," one said, "but we know it isn't going to transform the domestic position."

That domestic position is, of course, bad. But Brown becoming the first European leader in the Obama White House has already provided him with a PR gift better than any silver clock - the president could have chosen Nicolas Sarkozy of France on precedent alone, since Jacques Chirac was the first EU leader to visit George Bush.

Last June, though, the basketball-playing "skinny kid" from Hawaii and the son of the manse got on surprisingly well.

Obama's election to the White House has already been chalked up as helpful to Brown, bringing some traditional labor voters back to the party who had been lost by Blair's association with Bush. Many hope this week's photo calls with the two men will be a recruiting aid and provide a desperately needed bounce in the polls. "The sight of Brown with Obama will mean masses to the country," a former No 10 adviser said, before adding: "And, by the way, if he hadn't been first, the press would have killed him."

Nonetheless, Labour MPs want more than just some hospitality, and hope Obama will go as far as offering overtly political compliments to the prime minister, helping to shore up Brown's position at home.

One minister sketched the skein of long-standing political contacts that Brown has in Obama's administration, including Larry Summers, Robert Reich and Timothy Geithner: "I think Obama will feel very strongly drawn to back Brown ... you can't underestimate how much the development of the new Democrat projects and the new labor projects of the early nineties are intertwined. Many of Obama's closest advisers are Brown's mates - they have looked up to Gordon for a long time. I think there will be a lot of pressure to help Gordon's position."

Many labor MPs and ministers are treating the visit with reverence. Most regard Brown as their leader until the general election, despite the current jockeying by cabinet ministers for position. For this reason some talk of it in the kind of grandiose language Brown would approve of. They see this trip as the moment the special relationship - or "special partnership" as it is now called - is turned by Brown and Obama from the Bush-Blair one of foreign policy and defence into a special relationship for the economy - "a special relationship for ordinary people" one labor MP said.

Whether or not "ordinary people" even register Brown's visit may depend on his speech to Congress. A minister who has been critical of Brown before coming back on side over his handling of the economy said it represented the first chance in a while for Brown to speak and be heard. "People will take more notice of Brown speaking in Congress than Brown at his monthly press conference," he said. Candid words to Congress could be the beginning of a reversal in Brown's fortunes. "He needs to deal with the question of blame," the minister added.

"There's been no statement that international leaders should all shoulder the blame. This would be the chance to say it. And be heard."

Downing Street rubbished this, playing down the extent to which the highlight of the trip is the content of the speech. It knows it needs to get not just Obama but skeptical US Republicans on board the agenda for the G20 meeting. What's needed, Brown wrote at the weekend, is a global new deal - signed at the G20 in April - "whose impact can stretch from the villages of Africa to reforming the financial institutions of London and New York".

America shows signs of inserting a "buy American" clause into its economic recovery package but Brown will want to get assurances from Obama before the G20 that he too will sign up to a pledge against protectionism in the eventual communique. The prime minister wants to "magnify" the two countries' bail-outs of their respective economies by working more closely together.

This week's trip is the beginning of those negotiations - less last chance saloon and more a swig from a hip flask on a tiring journey to April's summit.

Some labor MPs are not convinced, however, and dismiss the importance of the visit. "This is the most serious challenge the labor party has faced since 1992, trying to win a fourth term in the midst of a deep recession," one said. "The scale of the challenge is immense ... do I think that by Thursday afternoon people in the Dog & Duck on the high street in my constituency will be voting for Gordon because of Obama? Do I even think they will be voting for me? No bloody way."