Barack Obama’s victory is prompting memories, even nostalgia, among veterans of Tony Blair’s team visiting the United States.

Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister, said: “I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”

The two elections have much in common. Both saw young progressive leaders with a talent for communication winning handsomely on a message of hope and change after a long period of conservative rule. As Mr MacShane pointed out, they each promised to reach out across the partisan divides, heal old wounds and govern for the whole country.

British politicians, from the Left and Right, have raced across the Atlantic in recent months to see what lessons can be learnt from Mr Obama’s campaign, particularly its use of the internet to galvanise activists and raise money.

But for some there is also a lesson for Mr Obama from the Blair era. The former Prime Minister himself wishes he had been bolder when he won his landslide 11 years ago. Instead, he pushed a series of small-bore initiatives and, perhaps, squandered his best opportunity to achieve lasting change.

Baroness McDonagh, who, as Labour’s general secretary, ran his famed Millbank Tower operation, said: “Obama must be brave now. He should try to do as much as he can now. Even if he gets two terms and eight years, it will be gone in the blink of an eye. He cannot start too soon.”

Lord Gould of Brookwood, who for so long was Mr Blair’s personal pollster, urged caution. He said: “Britain is not America. A president is not a prime minister. And this is not 1997.”

He suggested that the economic and foreign policy legacy being inherited by Mr Obama meant that he must tread carefully and offer co-operation with Republicans. “Obama has to bring people together, that is what America needs, it is what he promised in the campaign.”

Mr MacShane, meanwhile, said the President-elect needs to realise how everything he says now will be heard amplified through a megaphone. He cited an interview last week in which Mr Obama suggested that the US should seek to “resolve the Kashmir crisis” so that it can switch attention from India to fighting the Taleban on its western border. Such comments, he said will have set off alarm bells in both Delhi and Islamabad.

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