Gordon Brown has not come up a great deal in the American primary campaign, but he did during last week’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. Senator Hillary Clinton brought him up.

It was the second time she’d mentioned our prime minister, actually. The first was on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. And here’s how she put it: “I don’t think it was by accident that Al-Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister Gordon Brown immediately. They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more than some of our fellow citizens do . . . So let’s not forget you’re hiring a president not just to do what a candidate says during an election. You want a president to be there when the chips are down.”