The British press corps traveling with Gordon Brown -- or tabloid writers, as White House spokesman Robert Gibbs might have it -- had a bit of a laugh this morning when a Downing Street flack announced that the prime minister would be a bit late for his own press conference because "the PM is just having a quick chat with Obama." (The White House had put out a release saying that Brown and Obama would have a bilateral session at 4:05 p.m., but it now appears that this morning's quick impromptu meeting was it.)
Fleet Street hacks are always on the lookout for signs that Brown is being snubbed by the U.S. president, and it was readily apparent that the PM is deeply irritated by all the chatter and speculation about his relationship with Obama.
Asked for a readout of their meeting, Brown launched into a short lecture. "I've been meeting the president all week and I’m not going to get into this game," he said, clearly annoyed.
Saying the two leaders spoke about Iran, Afghanistan, and the global economic crisis, he continued: "You guys should start to understand how international meetings work," directing his comments at British journalists.
"This has been a week in which the big issues have been climate change, nuclear weapons, solidarity in dealing with the Iranian issue, the fight against terrorism and how we deal with it, the economy and what we do now," Brown added. "Newspapers are reporting these as the big issues that have got to be dealt with."
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