Brown speech to the US Congress

Gordon Brown was the first European leader to travel to Washington since Barack Obama became president on 20 January. He was also the fifth British PM to deliver a speech to the US Congress, 6 years after Tony Blair. He lavished praise on America as well as the 'special relationship' between the two countries, at a time when Obama had at first not seemed particularly keen to stress it. A lot of his speech was devoted to the economic crisis, and to the need to find global solutions for the financial sector (cf G20 summit in London next month). His address was also meant to encourage the Congress, and especially the Republicans, to support Obama's 'green' agenda on climate change - he wants to introduce a EU-like emissions trading scheme. See the full transcript of the speech here.