Gordon Brown is frantically trying to forge links with Barack Obama, having previously turned down the chance of a high-profile meeting with the US presidential contender at Downing Street last summer.

The Times understands there are concerns at the highest level in Whitehall that Britain does not have the relationship that it wants with Mr Obama — who has surged ahead of Hillary Clinton to become the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

One official complained yesterday that they were being “held at a bit of a distance” by Mr Obama’s team.

Mr Obama’s advisers made plans for him to visit European leaders in Paris, Berlin and London during a tour designed to bolster his foreign policy credentials before the campaign season began in earnest this year.

Arrangements were made through intermediaries, including the junior minister David Lammy, but it is understood that Mr Brown was reluctant to host formal discussions. Instead, it is said that the most Downing Street was willing to give Mr Obama was the opportunity of a “drop by” in which the Prime Minister would speak briefly to him in private.

The Times has been told by sources in Washington and London that Mr Brown was worried about being seen to help Mr Obama at a time when Mrs Clinton appeared to be the likely — even inevitable — nominee.

The example was cited of John Major, who damaged relations with Bill Clinton after assisting a dirt-digging campaign by the Republicans before the 1992 election.

One said: “Downing Street pushed [Obama] away.” Another put it more colloquially, saying: “They got the willies about the whole thing.”

Although Mr Obama’s decision to pull out of the European tour had more to do with his focus on early presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Government is now fretting over whether it will pay for failing to be more hospitable last summer.

It has been noted, for instance, that President Sarkozy of France — who has already made inroads into Britain’s traditional role as America’s most prominent European ally — offered Mr Obama an official welcome at the Élysée Palace.

“We’re not getting a lot of purchase,” an official said. “We have excellent contacts with John McCain [the expected Republican nominee] and Hillary Clinton. But the Obama campaign has clammed up a bit.”

There is already a degree of finger-pointing with some officials blaming ministers for enthusiastically pressing Mrs Clinton’s case and “hearing what they wanted to hear”, while others are making unflattering comparisons with past presidential campaigns when embassy staff established early relationships with winning candidates.

A source at the British Embassy in Washington denied that Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the Ambassador, had been ordered to launch a belated charm offensive, but added: “Obama matters now in a way he did not so much last summer. No 10 is certainly telling us that they are up for meeting any of the candidates. We try to have contacts with the campaigns at all levels as best we can.”

Mr Obama, who had met Tony Blair three times — twice in Washington and once on a brief visit to London — is said to be “relaxed” about Mr Brown’s apparent lack of enthusiasm last summer.

He has been criticised for not paying enough attention to key allies, having failed to convene a single policy meeting of the Senate’s European Sub-Committee, of which he is chairman. Advisers say he will revive plans for his European tour if he secures the Democratic nomination before the convention in August.

A spokesman for Mr Brown said yesterday: “It goes without saying that there is an open invitation to any of the candidates to meet with the Prime Minister should they be in London.

“We do not recognise suggestions that there was an issue about the nature of a potential meeting with Mr Obama. The British Embassy remains in close contact with all the campaigns. In fact, the British Ambassador had a meeting with Mr Obama just last week.”

Mr Lammy, who spent Saturday with Mr Obama as he campaigned in Wisconsin, said that the presidential candidate remained very pro-British.

The discomfiture of other ministers was best summed up by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, who was asked by The Times for her views on the presidential race when she visited Washington this month. Mr Brown, she said, represented experience and change, so “he combines the best of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama”.

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