He is not a figure who currently attracts much sympathy back in Blighty but it was hard not to feel a teeny weeny bit sorry for Gordon Brown today. There we press were this morning in the freezing cold outside the White House watching increasingly frantic British officials trying to salvage what they could from a visit that was clearly going awry.

"But this is not what we negotiated," said one plaintively, through the railings, to a supremely unconcerned Obama aide. Another talked of "fine tuning" that was still going on, just as a Secret Service agent on a loud hailer told him to move further away so the gate could be kept clear.

We received an apology-laden email from the British Embassy stating icily: "There is no flexibility in the White House today."

A press conference that had apparently been promised had been cancelled at the last minute due to the snow (on the ground for 24 hours and forecast several days earlier). Now the British diplomats were faced with a situation of no more than 16 of the 33 press who'd flown over from London even seeing President Barack Obama.