The George and Gordon show

Gordon Brown will be pleased by how his first press conference with George W. Bush went. There were no disasters even if Bush’s ragging of the press and boast that Brown is a ‘humorous Scot’ will rather grate on British ears. While on the plus side, Bush affirmed that Britain is America’s most important bilateral relationship.

Brown’s tactics for this meeting have worked a treat. He has kept his distance from Bush by dressing formally, keeping everything workmanlike—he rattled through agenda items in his opening statement as he used to do economic statistics in his budget statements, and by avoiding the mutual banter that Bush and Blair were so fond of. As a consequence of this, Brown hasn’t actually had to distance himself in any substantive way. Indeed, Brown has said nothing on this trip so far—at least in public—that will cause the Bush administration any discomfort.

On Iraq, Brown appears to have decided to stick with the Blair policy of gradual draw-down. What he has changed is the rhetoric. There were no paeans to democracy from Brown today, but instead sober talk about “duties to discharge and responsibilities to upkeep.” Brown is betting that the electorate won’t hold him responsible for what so many see as Blair’s war.