Gordon Brown yesterday placed himself shoulder to shoulder with America's incoming President, declaring: "I know Barack Obama and we share many values."

The Prime Minister boasted that the President Elect was a "true friend of Britain" and underlined how the UK-US relationship was "vital to our prosperity and security". His aides said that he expected to talk to Mr Obama "in the next couple of days".

They will have much to discuss, from the global recession and global warming to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

One major fear will be that as America faces up to dealing with the economic downturn it will turn protectionist, and that while it might have good intentions on tackling global warming economic constraints might mean it finds it impossible to act on them.

Certainly, one has always got the impression that the so-called "special relationship" between the UK and the US has been far more important to the former than the latter.

This is likely to continue to be the case under an Obama presidency and yet Britain's role as a trusted ally will still play highly with the world's superpower.

In the summer at the back-end of his European tour, Mr Obama stopped off in London and spoke about how, what he terms, the "transatlantic relationship" needed to be "recalibrated" with the UK becoming a "full partner".

The word "special" did not cross the President Elect's lips but is likely to do so once he is firmly ensconced in the White House.

Robin Shepherd, of the Chatham House think-tank, noted: "Britain is potentially a winner because (Obama) has made it very clear he regards Afghanistan as a priority.

"That suggests he would want western allies to stump up more troops. Britain has been arguing for this for a long time now."