Prime Minister Gordon Brown was reported today as saying the U.S. presidential campaign has been “historic” because of its candidates but he declined to pick a winner.

That was in keeping with what a PM would do in such circumstances, saying simply that it’s for the American people to decide.

Brown earlier this year rejected suggestions he endorsed  Obama’s presidential candidacy in an article. Brown, who has met both Obama and McCain in London and Washington, said afterwards he “admired both” but in his article had praised Obama for measures he proposed to help people deal with foreclosures.

Key international issues on the PM’s agenda when he first talks to the new U.S. president will be measures to reform the financial system and a solution to the Middle East conflict. He said today in an interview with Al-Arabiya television on the final day of his tour of the Gulf he was hopeful that a settlement could be negotiated soon.

“I think that’s possible, I think people understand how it can happen. We know that very detailed negotiations have taken place over the last few months,” he was quoted as saying.

“We know that the political situation at the moment has made it difficult for this to be brought to a conclusion, but I think that given people understand not only the importance but how a solution would look, I think it’s possible with the right circumstances to move quickly to a settlement.”

Here’s a guide to some places where you can watch the U.S. election results come in, apart from your own sofa, according to thelondonist.com

Free: You can watch history being made, live on the big screen at the Sun and Doves, Camberwell, with live election coverage following an 8pm screening of Brokeback Mountain. Traditional American scoff will be available: burgers, hot dogs, salt beef, fries, bagels and big bags of donuts (sic) to see you through. Sounds awesome but will only be open till midnight.

Big: In fact, the biggest election night party in London, is being held in the frightening sounding Yates Wine Lodge in Leicester Square. Tickets are £35 or £100 depending on how important you are. Food, booze, many screens, merchandise from either side and a mock election to keep you entertained. Late licence till 4am which might take you through to an outcome.

Expensive: The swanky East Room in Shoreditch is charging £125 a head but is open till 9am and intends to create a convention atmosphere with 100 Democrats, 100 Republicans and 49 neutrals. Price includes food, booze, coffee and pancakes right through the night from late dinner until dawn with champagne for the winners, tea and sympathy for the losers.

Meaty: The Chicago Rib Shack in Knightsbridge will charge you just £25 for a meaty late night supper from 11pm and serve you a celebratory/commiseratory breakfast at 6.30am with an all night licence in between.

Discreet, upmarket, no frills: The American Bar at the Stafford Hotel will be showing coverage all night. No admission fee, no RSVP but gentlemen are expected to wear a jacket in the American Bar. And they don’t mean a leather jacket.

The British press, like their American cousins, doesn’t seem to able to get enough of Sarah Palin.

The self-described hunting, shooting and hockey “mom” is the “biggest hot-button political story in the English-speaking world”, says Martin Kettle in The Guardian on Friday.

Newspapers have devoted pages to the previously little-known governor of Alaska and  now Republican vice-presidential candidate.

But while she was described as the next Margaret Thatcher by the American media in the Daily Telegraph, the British media have concentrated on drawing parallels with psychiatrist Dr Melfi from “The Sopranos” TV show or the late Princess Diana.

“She joins those women, such as Diana, Princess of Wales and Carla Bruni, who were picked to fill a gap at the side of a prominent man and promptly upstaged him,” writes Bronwen Maddox in The Times.

Her colleague Andrew Billen draws on Palin’s joke for inspiration: what is the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull — lipstick.

“It has been applied liberally to Mrs Palin’s pleasing face, less hockey mom than Dr Melfi from The Sopranos or the Specsavers model, a sexy lady who knows it but won’t show it. Her hair was down but her neckline was up.”

But all the papers agree she was a superstar. Suzanne Goldenberg in The Guardian writes that Palin had “provided excitement and glamour to a campaign that formerly had trouble electrifying the Republican base”.

She can connect with people in white working-class small towns and conservative areas, as well as younger voters and working mothers, Goldenberg adds.

“Hers was the sort of speech that George Bush, at his best, could do with great effect,” Kettle says.

Peter McKay in the Daily Mail goes one further and says she shouldn’t just set her cap at becoming vice-president.

“The story now isn’t about Sarah Palin’s suitability as vice-president. It’s the certainty that, if McCain, 72, wins, he’ll serve only one term. And his party will be grooming her as America’s first woman President.”

And all that despite her grating voice. “You could kill a bear at 200 yards with Sarah Palin’s voice,” Maddox cruelly says in The Times.

“I heard it first on the radio and winced; an octave higher than Hillary Clinton’s. It made a screech out of ‘I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country’.”

Palin as President would be bad news for The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Clover though. He writes in his Earthlog that she “could yet be a disaster for international relations” and that “environmentalists detest her”, quoting her pro-drillers stance and hunting habit.

She is not popular with Philip Stephens in the Financial Times either. Her speech was “not as good as the gush suggested”, he writes.

British newspapers were not fooled either by the “potent mixture of the homely and the daring”.

“Her teeth had not only been whitened, but sharpened, the better to sink into Barack Obama,” Billen in the Times writes.

Maddox describes Palin’s overall effect as “bullying”.

“You would not want to be on the Parent Teacher Association with her,” she observes.

“Her sarcasm was plain nasty. Mrs Palin portrays herself as the innocent outsider but she is a very worldly queen of her domain.”

The Guardian’s Kettle writes: “Palin can certainly attack. But will either male or female voters want a long-term relationship with a political dominatrix from the Arctic?”

Kettle warns against pumping up Palin’s profile too much.

He says the media had initially underestimated her, but the danger after her barnstorming speech on Wednesday is that it will now overestimate her.

“This isn’t a movie. This isn’t Geena Davis in Commander in Chief. It isn’t Jane Horrocks in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard.”

“Palin is one important factor among several in this election, and the real challenge, especially here in the eye of the storm, is get her into some perspective.”

For full coverage of the U.S. election click here

Gordon Brown has not had the best of luck since replacing Tony Blair as British prime minister a year ago. Now it seems Brown’s bad luck has followed him overseas.

On a trip to Iraq and Israel this weekend, he had the misfortune to have U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama following hard on his heels — and grabbing the lion’s
share of media attention.

Obama, who has pledged to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months if he wins the November election, arrived on Iraq on Monday, just two days after Brown’s whirlwind tour of Baghdad and Basra. He is due to arrive in Israel just hours after Brown’s plane took off on Monday to return to London.

Brown, known for his dour personality, could not compete in the charisma stakes with the senator from Illinois, the focus of intense interest as he makes his debut on the world stage with a tour of Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting the lack of impact Brown’s visit had made in Israel, sympathised with the British leader. “Visiting Israel in the same week that Obama is expected to arrive is like being the opening act for The Beatles,” it said.

Obama fever has swept some of the countries he is due to visit as people there get a first close look at the politician who takes on Republican Senator John McCain in the race to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush in the White House.

Brown, on the other hand, has little novelty value because, while he is a relatively new prime minister, he spent a decade before that as finance minister and so is well known to many of the leaders and ministers he held talks with.

On the streets, though, Brown is not as well known as Blair, now an international Middle East envoy. “I knew Mr. Tony Blair before, but Brown — I don’t know what he’s like,” said Palestinian taxi driver Saddam Musa, 55.

The newspaper said there were other reasons for the little coverage given to Brown’s visit, saying he lacked the political clout of former British leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

Brown, making his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories as prime minister, was granted the honour on Monday of addressing the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, the first British leader to do so. He recalled how, as a child, he had watched film of Israel,
shot by his father, a Church of Scotland minister who learned Hebrew and regularly visited Israel.

Brown promised $60 million in new aid for the Palestinians and d said a Middle East peace deal was within reach, but his call on Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion was rebuffed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Brown’s message drew criticism from Israeli commentators.
“Unfortunately, he parroted conventional European Union wisdom, which assumes that the road to progress is paved only with further Israeli concessions and requires condemnation of the life-saving security barrier,” The Jerusalem Post said on its website. “Nothing could be more counterproductive.” The right-leaning newspaper was referring to the fence Israel has built on occupied Palestinian land which it says keeps suicide bombers out of its cities.

Haaretz said visiting leaders had developed a habit of comforting the Palestinians with financial aid while compensating the Israelis by recognising their right to live in
security and comfort. “Yesterday, it was the turn of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to contribute to this depressing ritual.”

It said there was not much value in Brown’s plan for an “economic road map” to boost the region’s development as long as the West Bank was dissected by innumerable roadblocks.

Back in London, Brown will brief parliament on Tuesday on Britain’s future role in Iraq and brace for Thursday’s crucial parliamentary election in Glasgow East. Defeat in the Labour stronghold, seen as unlikely, could lead to Brown being forced to step down.

After that, he will barely have time to draw breath before Obama finally catches up with him. They are due to hold talks in London on Saturday.