In a protocol breach, Brown backs Obama

LONDON: British PM Gordon Brown has praised US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, seemingly breaching a protocol that prevents world leaders from endorsing candidates in foreign elections.

He hailed Obama's proposals for a mortgage foreclosure prevention fund and said he believed the Democratic Party is the organization offering policies to help people through the current economic woes.

"In the US campaign, it is the Democrats who are generating the ideas to help people through more difficult times," Brown wrote in Parliamentary Monitor magazine. Conservative Party said he was guilty of a major gaffe.