Brown flies to US to meet Bush

GORDON Brown flew to the US last night, saying he planned to use the official visit to strengthen what Britain considers its “most important bilateral relationship.”

“It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual,” Brown said in a statement. “And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong, but can become stronger in the years ahead.”

Brown, making his first visit to the US as Britain’s leader, also denied speculation that the bilateral relationship was cooling.

His predecessor, Tony Blair, was often accused at home of being too compliant with the policies of President Bush, especially regarding the Iraq war. Some analysts have urged Brown to be more like Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill, who had close ties with the US but remained frank about their own goals and policies.

Brown makes his first major overseas trip buoyed by a surprising degree of public support after a first month in office in which he impressed with his sober handling of the terror plots in London and Glasgow.

Many observers expected him to flop because of a personality often derided as dour and brooding — yet these very traits have helped him appear serious and statesmanlike.

Brown arrives with some thorny issues to manage, not least the fate of Britain’s remaining soldiers in Iraq.

In Washington, officials expressed optimism about warm ties between Bush and Brown, but there have already been frictions.

Junior foreign affairs minister Mark Malloch-Brown raised eyebrows in Washington recently when he said Bush and Brown would not be “joined at the hip” — a jab at Blair’s close relationship with the US president.

In London, The Sunday Times reported that Simon McDonald, Brown’s chief foreign policy adviser, recently travelled to Washington to meet with US officials ahead of the prime minister’s visit and discussed the possibility of an early British military withdrawal from Iraq.

However, Brown’s spokesman Michael Ellam told reporters on Sunday that McDonald had made it “very clear” to US officials there had been no change to British government policy over Iraq.