Bush is not welcome in Britain

posted by admin on Monday October 27, @06:30PM

The president's state visit serves no one's interests but his own

Roy Hattersley
Monday October 27, 2003
The Guardian

Has anyone yet explained why President George W Bush is about to make a state visit to the United Kingdom? In my time at the Foreign Office, the supreme accolade of an invitation from Her Majesty was only awarded after long deliberation had convinced the prime minister and foreign secretary that Britain's national interest would be served by arranging for the king, queen or president in question to perform a number of meaningless ceremonies and eat numerous mediocre meals in the company of the royal family. What do we have to gain by feting President Bush?

According to Downing Street, George Bush's presence in London will provide "an important opportunity to deepen our close relations with a close international partner". How much closer is it possible to get than the closeness that made us follow America into an unjustified war? President and prime minister meet each other almost every month. Clearly, this state visit had been arranged for reasons that do not meet the usual criteria.

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Tony Blair, on the other hand, has nothing to gain and everything to lose from the visit. He may not have noticed it, but President Bush is regarded in Britain with something approaching contempt. He has achieved the unusual feat of being simultaneously sinister and ridiculous, and he is regarded as the rich kid who grew up arrogant and inarticulate. But it is his role in making the war in Iraq inevitable that makes him unwelcome here. There are no votes to be won by being buddy-buddy with a man who is despised by most of the British public.

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How the president himself will react to the humiliation of a state visit that has had to be truncated and emasculated because of the strength of feeling against him, we can only guess. We can rightly discount the behaviour of the hooligans who try physically to disrupt his progress. But he ought to know how strongly so many of us feel. Send a postcard to the American embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1A 1AE.

The Guardian