Gordon Brown's first major test as PM on the international stage will take place this weekend he holds his first face-to-face meeting with George W Bush at Camp David.
Gordon Brown's first major test on the international stage will take place this weekend when as Prime Minister he holds his first face-to-face meeting with George W Bush at the US President's mountain retreat at Camp David.
Six years after a fresh-faced Tony Blair strode up a hilly Maryland path for his opening meeting with Mr Bush, commentators will be looking for any sign of a cooling of the "special relationship" particularly after Lord Malloch Brown, the new Foreign Office minister, earlier this month declared that the UK and US would no longer be "joined at the hip" on foreign policy.
As with his predecessor, Mr Brown will have dinner at Camp David and will discuss Iraq and America's missile defence system with Mr Bush. The talks will also cover Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestine crisis, Darfur, Kosovo, climate change and the deadlock in world trade talks.
The Prime Minister has already met the President informally in Washington while he was waiting to take over from Mr Blair but this weekend will be the first time the two men will have met since Mr Brown assumed power.
The Prime Minister's three-day trip to the US, which will include a keynote address to the United Nations in New York, will enable him to build up a personal relationship with the President, who, at his first joint press briefing with Mr Blair was asked what they had in common and famously replied: "Well, we both use Colgate toothpaste."
Following Lord Malloch Brown's comments and those by Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, who warned against unilateralism and called for an "internationalist approach" to global problems, Mr Brown has been at pains to make clear the importance he attaches to Britain's special relationship with the US, stressing the values and history the two countries share.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, underscored the point when he recently said: "Nothing has changed. Our strongest bilateral relationship is with the US."
In Washington, Tony Snow, the President's spokesman, said the PM would arrive on Sunday night and have dinner and meetings through to Monday. The two leaders had a "very special important relationship," he said, adding that they were expected to talk about issues of "shared interest and concern".
Yesterday, Mr Brown, a month into his premiership, chaired a political summit of his cabinet at his official country residence of Chequers.
He has been buoyed by a healthy seven-point lead over David Cameron's Conservatives in the polls, two by-election victories and positive media reviews of his performance as PM.
The successful start to his time in office has led to widespread speculation that the political cabinet in deepest Buckinghamshire was devoted to planning for a possible early General Election.
Mr Alexander has already been appointed Mr Brown's General Election co-ordinator with Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office Minister, being tasked with drawing up the manifesto.
However, the PM will be keenly aware that his political honeymoon and the "Brown bounce" in the polls might not last through the traditionally politically quiet summer recess, which begins today.
Mr Cameron has told Tory back benchers that he is planning a summer campaign to counteract Mr Brown's efforts to portray himself as "new" and "a change".
The Conservative leader will be hoping for a Brown slump and a revival in his own fortunes after a poll said that more than half of voters do not believe he is in control of his party. Just 22% of those questioned by pollsters YouGov for Channel 4 felt Mr Cameron was in control of the Tories.
