British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his foreign secretary, Robin
Cook, were all the quicker to congratulate George W. Bush on
confirmation of his election because they knew that they had a good
deal of ground to make up. For months Labour Party figures had
scarcely concealed their scorn for the Republican presidential
candidate. Blair's eminence grise, Peter Mandelson, then Northern
Ireland secretary, was even indiscrete enough to tell journalists his
opinions of Bush and his policies at a drinks party before Christmas,
and then had to issue a public retraction.
If the problem were simply the result of New Labour nostalgia for the
cozy relationship built up with the Clinton administration, it would
have little long-term significance. But its roots go much deeper than
that and lie not in personalities but in policies, indeed in
conceptions of the very purpose of Western foreign and security
policy. Even on the occasion of Messrs. Blair's and Cook's formal
felicitations, their words, consciously or not, contained more than a
hint of trouble to come. "President-elect Bush", said Blair, "is a
man who shares our values [and] wants Europe and America to stand
side by side." Still more significant, Cook looked forward to working
with the new President and to "keeping Britain as that unique bridge
between America and Europe" [emphasis added].
