LONDON: A friend of mine swears she recently heard George W. Bush quoted as saying Tony Blair was the least political leader he knew. I haven’t been able to track the quote down, but it has the ring of authenticity for British ears.

By this I do not mean Blair is not political in Britain. On the contrary, many here would regard him as the most political leader we have had for a long time. But in regard to his relations with George W. Bush, the putative quote rings true because as far as most people I know are concerned, the US/UK relationship under Bush and Blair is very one-sided. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Bush gets what he wants out of it and Blair doesn’t.

This judgment assumes of course that a British prime minister should, for the most part, be acting in the British interest — not, I think, an unreasonable assumption. In the words of one former Conservative cabinet minister under former UK premier Margaret Thatcher: “Tony Blair always gets the wrong end of the stick”. The former minister had in mind, among other things Blair’s desire to end decades of British ambiguity towards continental Europe, and abandon the Pound Sterling in favour of the Euro.

At one stage, Blair would tell trusted political interviewers that this was what he wanted to go down in history for. Yet by treating the French the way they did during the run up to the Iraq war, Blair and his colleagues antagonised France (among others), whose support they need if they are ever to secure a decent deal for the UK over the Euro. The episode brings back memories of the way, in the early 1960s, the then UK prime minister, Harold Macmillan, cultivated the ‘special relationship’ with Washington over a missile deal. Unfortunately, this irked France’s President de Gaulle, who then vetoed for a decade British entry to what was then the European Common Market.

What Britain needs in these matters is a new version of the Monroe doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, it will be recalled was proclaimed by James Monroe, Secretary of State and President of the United States in 1823. The message was simple: “Hands Off America,” with European powers no longer intervening in the Americas and, as quid pro quo, the US staying out of Europe.

Well, as it turned out, a century later the US did intervene in Europe — twice to help fight a war, and once to help with its post-1945 reconstruction under the Marshall Plan, while over the same period the Europeans certainly did stop intervening in the Americas.

But we perhaps need a new Monroe Doctrine which proclaims that British prime ministers should not get so close to American presidents that they antagonize their own supporters and prejudice our relations with the rest of Europe.

It is obvious to the entire world that this week’s state visit of President Bush to the UK is not exactly popular with a large proportion of the British people and is at best very badly timed. It was in fact arranged shortly after the 2001 British general election, with the specific purpose of tying Blair close to Bush. An especially farcical aspect of the visit is the way that, given how little Blair has got out of the relationship with Bush, speculation has flourished that Bush will have to offer the British prime minister ‘something’ on this visit. According to earlier reports that something was going to be an announcement of a relaxation of the steel tariffs Bush imposed a couple of years ago in a shamelessly protectionist move.

Well, for a start, the tariffs should be removed anyway. They are illegal, and if a commitment to remove them is not made by next month, the European Union has promised to retaliate, with the World Trade Organization in the meantime having ruled against them. They have simply got to come off if Bush and the US are to be taken seriously as being as ‘multilateralist’ as they claim.

The idea that an announcement of their removal would be a concession to Blair and proof that the great relationship is reciprocal, is truly laughable. And, just to ram the point home, having encouraged expectations that an announcement would be made this week, US Treasury Secretary John Snow has since been back- pedalling, saying it is a decision for the President, a man who thinks Tony Blair is the least political leader he knows. —Dawn/The Observer News Service.