The special relationship is between Washington and Brussels
Then there is Malloch Brown — not his history of hostility to America, nor his defence of UN corruption, nor his presumption of lobbying the US Senate in opposition to the confirmation of the President’s choice of US representative to the UN (let those bygones be bygones, as the Prime Minister would have it), but his more recent performance. Brown went out of his way last week to say that Malloch Brown ‘is doing a good job’, despite the fact that the Cabinet-attending minister told the House of Lords that Britain should negotiate with Hamas and Hezbollah, and assured the Syrian ambassador he is their man at Gordon Brown’s Cabinet table, just as he has ‘represented Syria inside the UN’. American policy-makers, about to convene delicate meetings in Annapolis with the Palestinians and the Israelis, can be forgiven for wondering whether British policy is represented by David Miliband, who recently completed what he describes as successful meetings with Condoleezza Rice on Middle East policy, or Malloch Brown, who proudly claims to represent terrorist-supporting Syria.
Any doubt that these incidents reflect the direction in which Gordon Brown is taking Britain was dispelled when the Prime Minister donned white tie to address the Lord Mayor’s banquet. Recall: No. 10 trailed the speech as having as its main theme a demonstration that Britain still regarded America as its most important ally. Just as some funny things happened to David Miliband’s Bruges speech between the draft leaked to the press and the one that emerged from the No. 10 cutting room — so some funny things happened to Gordon Brown’s speech between its trailing on Sky News and in the press, and its delivery.
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Celeste
November 24th, 2007 3:00amThank you Irwin, for telling it like it is. Gordon Brown's selective vision on the'SpecialRelationship'provides a great opportunity for the Tories. Will they make the most of it?
Ian
November 24th, 2007 11:58amAnd with his vision he will find his exit from office. This is exactly the sort of damage a left of centre government does to Britain. In a globalised world we cannot survive by redistributing ever larger quantities of a diminishing share of world trade to an increasing underclass who are more and more workshy and drug addled the more benefits we re-distribute.
wilson
November 28th, 2007 10:34pmNo wonder Gordon Brown is happy to get approval of the EU's Amending Treaty through the House of Commons. He's become a Europe and is content to surrender our sovereigty to the emerging superstate. Once that Treaty is signed, member states won't be consulted any more. The Commission will decide Europe's future. Brown's Britishness is a lie. He's a closet Europhile.