McCain fury at Brown's Obama praise

Gordon Brown: The PM has angered Republicans by appearing to endorse Barack Obama

Gordon Brown was embroiled in a row with John McCain today after appearing to endorse Barack Obama.

A gaffe by the No 10 machine saw the Prime Minister "writing" an article that lavished praise on US Democratic presidential candidate Mr Obama - while ignoring his Republican rival.

In fact the article was ghost-written - and there were suggestions that Mr Brown had not actually read the words put out under his name.

But the damage caused, by what looked like a clear breach of the usual strict neutrality in a presidential election, was immediate. There were protests to the British embassy in Washington from Mr McCain's backers - and fresh questions at home about flaws in the Downing Street operation.

Mr Brown's praise for Mr Obama, revealed exclusively in later editions of the Standard last night, came in an article for Parliamentary Monitor.

It read: "In the electrifying US presidential campaign, it is the Democrats who are generating the ideas to help people through more difficult times.

"To help prevent people from losing their home, Barack Obama has proposed a Foreclosure Prevention Fund to increase emergency pre-foreclosure counselling, and help families facing repossession." Mr Brown did not mention Mr McCain. His spokesman tried to play down the words this morning, saying they are not an endorsement.

Effectively confirming that Mr Brown did not write the words himself, he went on: "The Prime Minister takes responsibility for everything that goes out in his name."

No 10 said it was a "party political article", which suggested regular civil servants did not handle it and it was written by a member of Mr Brown's political campaigning team headed by chief of strategy Stephen Carter.

Asked if Mr Brown had spoken to Mr McCain overnight to apologise, the spokesman said: "I'm not going to comment on any private conversations."

Other sources said they believed the article had been sent to Mr Brown to be "signed off ". Although not personally written by the Prime Minister, they said it was based on a party conference document he did write. That document, however, did not name Mr Obama.

Within hours of the Standard's original report, the influential US website The Drudge Report was running it as "Brown backs Obama".

It was reported that a member of the McCain team called the British embassy to demand an explanation.

Michael Goldfarb, Mr McCain's deputy communications chief, accused Mr Brown of praising a policy Mr Obama had dropped. Under the heading "The Coveted Gordon Brown Endorsement" he wrote: "Far be it from this campaign to underestimate the value of an endorsement from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but there is one slightly embarrassing detail."

With the row expanding rapidly, the Obama camp was forced to deny dropping the homes policy. Shadow foreign secretary William Hague accused Mr Brown of behaving irresponsibly.

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