THERE ARE FEW sentences less likely to win friends and influence people than: “Hello, we’re here to mend fences with President Bush.”
David Cameron’s decision to send his top team of William Hague, George Osborne and Liam Fox to Washington next month to do just that is thus an encouraging sign. Far from merely pandering to yoga-class chatter, it seems he has a principled approach to the one issue that matters above all else — defending the West.
By far the easiest approach for Mr Cameron would be to pretend that President Bush did not exist since, by the next election, the leader of the free world will have served his two terms and be back on his Crawford ranch. Mr Cameron will never have to deal with him as Prime Minister.
If Mr Cameron was truly cynical, he would build on his predecessor’s froideur to President Bush and thereby endear himself still further in what pass for the minds of the Juice Bar generation.
When British Prime Minister Hugh Grant told US President Billy Bob Thornton where he could put his government, cinema audiences cheered and commentators bemoaned the fact that the real PM did not behave like Mr Grant’s character. But for some strange reason, Tony Blair decided not to model his foreign and security policy on a Richard Curtis romantic comedy. Nor, it seems, has Mr Cameron.
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I would like to report that I have discovered the “points to make” memo that the Conservatives have prepared for their meetings with Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and John Snow: