"America's Historic Verdict" covers the front of The Guardian; "Obama's New Dawn" exclaims the Daily Mail; and The Times declare "Change has Come". Arguably this could well be the biggest political event in American history since the election of JFK and is certainly the biggest global political event since Nelson Mandela's election as South African President.

So the message is clear, these are new times, and the period of Republican power in the US is over with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President. But this isn't just any old Democratic President - no, this is the one the rest of the world has been calling for. He is the one who against all odds mounted a phenomenal campaign inspiring people to believe in something greater than themselves. He filled stadiums with 100,000s of Americans eager to be involved in what could be the ushering in of an exciting time for America.

His campaign was dominated by the rhetoric of change - offering to draw a line under the failed national and foreign policies of the Bush era. With a truly radical manifesto he promised: high quality health care, guaranteed to every American regardless of medical history or income, lower insurance premiums for everyone, and the freedom to choose their own doctor and their own plan; a 5 year windfall tax on energy companies to give a $1000 dollar rebate to every American; to reduce America's carbon emissions 80% by 2050; to shift the tax burden to reward work and cut taxes for 95% of American families while rolling back Bush's tax giveaways to the rich; not to mention his promise to pull out of Iraq. But beyond these headline grabbers he also promised to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2010 and index it to inflation; end the loopholes which allow major corporations to incorporate off-shore and evade billions in taxes; and to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

These are not small things he has promised, and they have the potential to be truly transformational. With strong, radical centre left policies he can rebuild America, he can make people's every day lives better and inspire people with the values of equality, liberty, democracy and solidarity. As David Lammy said at our AGM that it wasn't just the man who has inspired, but the bold ideas he represents.

In this there are lessons that can be learnt by the centre-left here in the UK, why is it that in the US - an arguably more conservative country - Barack Obama can win on such a clear mandate of taxes on energy and oil companies and of taxes on the super-rich to help those on lower and middle incomes along with all the other bold centre-left policies he stood for?

Equally however we'd like to offer a note of caution. A tough question that we must ask ourselves is that with all this expectation are we bound to be disappointed? Can the man live up to the myth that has been created? Will he be able to do all he has promised? Or will he get lost along the way? In 1997 we believed on a landslide of optimism, like we have seen in the US, that "things could only get better", and in a lot of ways they did - on a remarkably similar mandate to this one Blair introduced a minimum wage, there was a windfall tax on the privatised utilities, he increased funding in health care and introduced tax credits to equalise the tax system. But after the wave of optimism had past we were left with a government which increasingly lacked direction, which went to war in Iraq, which failed to protect our public services from the encroachment of market interests and which floated our economy on the financial markets. We know that with a Tory government things could only have been worse, but we also know that they could have been better still.

We should also not discount the role of the financial crisis in this election and its inevitable impact on the style and substance of the forthcoming Obama Presidency. Just as the crisis consolidated Obama's position as the campaign edged toward the finishing line, so the crisis offers a unique set of opportunities for Obama to fashion a new world order as President. Just as FDR did before him we hope that the Obama Presidency will similarly usher in a new political and economic consensus based on centre-left values, a new age of fairness for new times.

So on this hugely momentous day we should all have the audacity to hope that this time Obama will be different, that this is a new dawn, that change has come and that this is a historic moment. Personally we believe that he can do all of these things, passion and commitment seem to ooze out of him in a way that inspires people to be more than they are, and to believe in greater things. But only time will tell. Until then, we can only wait and hope he can be the change we wish to see in the world.

Zoe Gannon and Gavin Hayes