Pizzas galore!

Sources close to him say that the secret of his advance in Europe is the good relations he has established with Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and, most recently and crucially, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. The latter link was previously uncomfortable after Mr Brown’s apparent dithering over whether he should attend the Lisbon treaty signing ceremony. In the end he did - but arrived late.

That has become a distant memory. Yesterday it was Mr Barroso who was leading the Brown fan club.

He said Mr Brown had been invited to the “eurozone” meeting by himself and Mr Sarkozy because of London’s place as one of the most important financial markets in the world.

“I really felt it was important that we had a co-ordinated European response and London is one of the most important financial places in the world,” he said.

“We needed a global solution for a global problem and we ended up with what I will call the ’Brown plan’.

“Maybe it was because Britain was amongst the first to feel the full effects of the financial crisis, facing difficulties with Northern Rock and others, but the UK was amongst the first to propose comprehensive plans for working together in Europe.”

He could not resist a dig at Euro-sceptics who normally complain about too much EU interference had been calling actively for a European response to the financial crisis.

“Europe is now showing what it can do together and I hope that remains the case and that we emerge from this crisis even stronger,” he said.

Mr Brown was continuing his strictures to the world yesterday. The stakes were “higher than ever before”, he said as he called for agreement on reforms of the global financial system.

Ahead of the two day Brussels gathering, the Prime Minister said co-ordinated action to improve liquidity was not enough for long-term stability.

Now governments around the world had to deliver reforms to restore confidence to the financial markets.

He said: “We need to show that we have dealt with the difficulties’ caused in the first place, that we are making the reforms that are necessary so that the global financial system will work.”

He is also calling for more co-operation between world governments, including a “new international financial architecture” featuring global networks of supervision.

“We are in the first financial crisis of the global age and we need to recognise therefore that global flows of capital cannot be supervised by national forms of supervision,” he said.

He said that other countries had been looking at “exactly the same issues” and were now coming to similar conclusions about the necessary response.

He added: “I believe the resolve of our leaders will be put to the test in the coming days, but I believe we can come through stronger.”

Mr Brown will be centre-stage over the next two days. He has even missed out on Prime Minister’s questions today, leaving the stage to Harriet Harman, to get there early.

But he is aware from personal experience that the sudden upsurge in his fortunes may only temporary. As he told the foreign press: “Politics, I have found, is about ups and downs and you have got to treat adversity and periods of popularity with equal equanimity.”

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