Obama takes tour of White House

BARACK OBAMA set foot in the Oval Office for the first time today as he was taken on a tour of the White House by George Bush.

While he was shown round the room from where he will run the country after his inauguration in January, his wife Michelle and their daughters were taken on a guided tour of living quarters at the presidential home.

Mr Bush and Mr Obama were also expected to pose for photographs in the Rose Garden. Their main topic of conversation, apart from the transition of government from Republican to Democrat, was the faltering US economy.

Mr Obama has moved swiftly to assemble his economic team to tackle the crisis. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said the president-elect was going through a shortlist of names of people he wants.

With a $380billion economic bail-out agreed prior to the election, Mr Obama wants to see how the money can be used to kickstart the economy. Top of the agenda will be how to save the US car industry. Rising fuel prices and lack of consumer spending have hit the once-thriving industry hard, with sales down to their lowest in over 40 years.

General Motors, which owns the Vauxhall plants in Luton and Cheshire, is on the verge of bankruptcy as it goes through £1billion a month to keep plants in operation.

Mr Rahm said Mr Obama would not sit idly by during the two month transition period before he assumes power and that he would "hit the ground running".

Senior aides to Mr Obama have said he plans to speak to Mr Bush about a number of executive orders that he disagrees with, most notably on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.

Gordon Brown today urged Mr Obama not to cave in to calls for new trade barriers aimed at protecting US jobs.

In his Mansion House speech this evening, the Prime Minister was due to stress the need for an "urgent agreement on a trade deal and a rejection of beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism that has been a feature in transforming past crises into deep recessions".

Senior Democrats have advocated protectionist moves and have accused US firms of "exporting" jobs abroad.

But Mr Brown, who may meet Mr Obama next weekend in Washington where world leaders will hold talks on the economic crisis, believes that the president-elect can lead the way to a new era of global co-operation.

"As America stands at its own dawn of hope, so let that hope be fulfilled through a pact with the wider world to lead and shape the 21st century as the century of a truly global society," the Prime Minister was due to say.