Analysis By James Arnold BBC News Online business reporter at the CBI conference

Digby Jones was pleased with the high calibre of his podium partners

Those hoping to see sparks fly when two transatlantic trade titans shared a stage at the CBI conference were due for a disappointment.

CBI spin doctors had been hoping to make UK-US economic relations the hot issue of this year's conference, with talk of a trans-Atlantic trade war becoming ever more urgent and British firms griping about being frozen out of the American market.

So the eyes of the world, it was hoped, would be on Birmingham, when Chancellor Gordon Brown and US Treasury Secretary John Snow pitched their cases to an audience of British business leaders.

It's all a bit over my head, to be honest CBI delegate

In the event, the two great men did little more than circle each other cordially.

Special relationship

Mr Snow and Mr Brown went out of their way to lavish praise on each other.

For Mr Snow it was "always a pleasure to see Mr Brown in action".

The chancellor, meanwhile repeatedly called Mr Snow "distinguished", and began his speech with a lengthy preamble on the two governments' "wonderfully good and cordial personal relationships," and "shared values".

If trade tensions were in the air, they seemed unlikely to lead to fisticuffs on the CBI stage.

Brown blusters through

Mr Brown delivered his customary steamroller performance, talking quickly and underlining his remarks with an array of remarkably aggressive hand gestures - moulding, kneading and tearing the air in front of him.

Gordon Brown gesticulated

He insisted that the UK Government was a wholehearted convert to American-style enterprise culture and told his audience that he was committed to dealing with their gripes about mounting red tape and inefficient public services.

He also confirmed the plan, widely trailed in advance as is usual with Treasury initiatives, to work on creating a trans-Atlantic free trade area, something he says could bring in $100bn and create millions of new jobs.

A trade war with the US, he said, would be "extremely unfortunate".

Snow falls flat

Mr Snow replied with a speech that might have sedated more listeners than it seduced.

A more hesitant and conversational speaker than the immaculately drilled Mr Brown, he occasionally came close to grinding to a halt.

Nor was his content particularly stimulating: carefully avoiding sensitive current events, he focused on the structural strengths and weaknesses of the world economy.

Nor did he fight shy of baffling his audience with horrendous fiscal jargon, such as "yield maturation curve".

China is eating our lunch Digby Jones, CBI Director General

The threat of a trade war was not even mentioned, until wrung from him by a question from the floor.

It was all, he said, a matter for the president.

Lacking Lustre

Reaction from delegates was understandably muted.

"It takes something special to make a Brown speech sound exciting, and that was it," snorted one chief executive.

But in a sense, it was a fittingly lacklustre end to a lacklustre conference. For all the efforts of the spin doctors, few delegates came to Birmingham with burning issues on their minds.

Short on sparks: John Snow

Quibbles aside, most seemed broadly happy with the current government, broadly content with the UK as a place to do business, and broadly unworried by the state of the global economy.

Nor were many of the hard-nosed British businessmen who make up the core CBI membership particularly gripped by the grand sweep of international politics.

"It's all a bit over my head, to be honest," said one.

Digby mans the barricades

Digby Jones, the CBI's indefatigable director general, did his considerable best to gee up the mood

Resplendent in Union Jack cufflinks, and throwing out soundbites such as "China is eating our lunch," Mr Jones was plainly excited by the high calibre of the speakers he had attracted to his podium.

The CBI bills its annual conference as second only to Davos as a business get-together, and Mr Jones stressed that issues of global significance are discussed and decided at its forums.

"It certainly has been a tremendous couple of days," he said. "No newspaper, radio or TV station could afford to ignore it."

Different folk

Whether the conference floor shared his enthusiasm is open to question.

Attendance seems to be sharply down: 600 delegates were listed this year, but old hands remember the days when 2,000 was not unusual.

Nor do those 600 necessarily represent the cream of British business: a glance down the list of delegates and exhibitors reveals a heavy dependence on the public sector, in particular those agencies and quangos that have thrived under the present government.

Business people asked by BBC News Online worried that, amid the welter of political tub thumping, the conference's reputation as a nitty-gritty business talking shop might be in decline.

More sparks next year, please.