万花筒 2008-07-27&-07-28 奥巴马访伦敦（在线收听）

After the adoring crowds in Berlin and the high-profile treatment from President Sarkozy in Paris, Senator Obama's British leg of his tour was comparatively low-key. It was a tale of three prime ministers, one past, one present and perhaps one to come. He took breakfast with Tony Blair, the former Downing Street prime minister, who is these days a Middle East peace envoy.

Then on to No.10 itself for the talks with Gordon Brown, a man who's taken a battering in the opinion polls and whose Labor Party is at the worst level it has ever been. That didn't stop them discussing Afghanistan, Iraq, how to reform the world's financial institutions, the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations and to cope better with current crises. And they also, of course, discussed climate change, at one stage strolling in the No.10 garden and out on Horse Guards Parade. How much good all this has done Senator Obama at home? Well, he seemed a little bit downbeat about those prospects.

"You know, I'm not sure that there's gonna be some immediate political impact, you know, I won't even be surprised if that in some polls that you saw a little bit of a dip as a consequence. We've been out of the country for a week. People are worried about gas prices; they are worried about home foreclosures, so the reason that I thought this trip was important was, I am convinced that many of the issues that we face at home, are not gonna be solved as effectively unless we have strong partners abroad."

On his one public engagement in Britain emerging from the door of No.10 Downing Street to face the media, Barack Obama defended himself against criticisms of his trip from Senator John McCain. He said it was important for presidential candidates to travel abroad and build bridges with potential allies. But the real question about this high-profile trip round eight nations is gonna be what it actually does with those voters back home when they have very different concerns to the highfalutin questions of international finance and politics.