For the Queen, yesterday's events will have been familiar but for Gordon Brown it is the first time he has asked for the dissolution of Parliament.

The monarch has seen 11 Prime Ministers head her Government over the decades while Mr Brown has yet to face the electorate as leader of the ruling Labour Party.

The two meet regularly for talks that are famously kept private but today was different - the topic under discussion was well known.

The event had its own drama and the Prime Minister was shadowed by a media helicopter as he made the short journey from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace in a car flanked by two police motorcycle riders.

His chauffeur-driven Jaguar left the out-riders behind as it swept into the palace's red gravelled internal quadrangle bathed in bright sunshine.

A group of journalists, broadcasters and cameramen had been waiting since early morning to capture the moment of the arrival.

The car stopped outside the entrance known as the King's Door at 10.05 a.m. and Mr Brown was met on its steps by the monarch's private secretary, Christopher Geidt. The two men shook hands and smiled warmly at each other before the politician was ushered inside.

As he stepped through the large wooden doors he entered the lavish palace first used as an official royal residence by Queen Victoria.

It is an entrance Mr Brown will have used many times during his weekly meetings with the Queen, when the two of them sit alone without advisors, and staff for private discussions.

In niches on either side of the doors were busts of George V and Edward VII, the Queen's grandfather and great grandfather respectively, and looming over the politician was a large full-length portrait of George III at the top of a small flight of steps.

The Sovereign's deputy private secretary Edward Young also met the politician in the small lobby area before the meeting began.