There have been some angry whisperings from the Foreign Office about the PM's continuted shoulder-adjacent stance with the Americans vis-vis all world affairs.
The UK now isolated completely in its support for Israel's war crimes against the Lebanese, mandarins are slowly starting to leak out the level of anxiety this policy stance is causing.
So it has been revealed that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan telephoned Jack Straw at home to express his bewilderment at Blair's attitude and to beg Straw to try and talk him round.
Kim Howells, Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, clearly wants an immediate ceasefire, along with everyone else in the goverment.
The position of Margaret Beckett is not one to be envied. A few months into the job, she has to balance a PM who is religiously devoted to the Yo' cult of Bush and the neo-cons with her own department and the rest of the international community, who think the Yo' cult is full of dangerous simpletons.
Back in the day, the FCO used to actually direct, plan and control Britain's interests abroad. Now it is, like every other department bar the Treasury, just an outpost of No. 10. This movement of power to the centre began with St Margaret of Handbag. Bored of beating up miners and witchhunts against the gays, she decided to take over Foreign Affairs and appointed her own special adviser to give 'perspective' on all the lies and evasions that the FCO do so very well.
The upshot was the resignation of the side-lined Foreign Secretary, the lovely Geoffrey Howe. His subsequent resignation speech in the House was the beginnning of the end of La Thatcher.
The seriously flawed American plan seems to be to allow Israel to continue to destroy Lebanon, as it is all part of that old favourite, the war on terror. TWOT is used in all sorts of guises these days, from Russsian imperial expansion into Chechnya to Indonesian internal repression to, it seems, Israeli use of collective punishment.
TWOT can be used to justify any crime.
It is a shame that Margaret Beckett, that loyalist of loyalists, stalwart of the Labour movement, will not be the one to stand up to Blair and TELL him that we must be more even handed. It is hard to see how any meaningful debate with the Muslim community here and abroad can start when out entire foreign policy is Muslim bad, anyone else good. We are standing on the sidelines cheering Israel on as it reigns death and terror on innocent Lebanese, whose crime is to be alive. It is a shameful position, truly shameful and one that every single one of our EU partners rejects in favour of NO killing, NO bombings, NO air strikes
One can only hope that the Labour party will see some sense at the party conference. This last act of dictatorship by Blair might be the catalyst that sees him become a former prime minister at a time of our choosing, not his.
The UK now isolated completely in its support for Israel's war crimes against the Lebanese, mandarins are slowly starting to leak out the level of anxiety this policy stance is causing.
So it has been revealed that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan telephoned Jack Straw at home to express his bewilderment at Blair's attitude and to beg Straw to try and talk him round.
Kim Howells, Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, clearly wants an immediate ceasefire, along with everyone else in the goverment.
The position of Margaret Beckett is not one to be envied. A few months into the job, she has to balance a PM who is religiously devoted to the Yo' cult of Bush and the neo-cons with her own department and the rest of the international community, who think the Yo' cult is full of dangerous simpletons.
Back in the day, the FCO used to actually direct, plan and control Britain's interests abroad. Now it is, like every other department bar the Treasury, just an outpost of No. 10. This movement of power to the centre began with St Margaret of Handbag. Bored of beating up miners and witchhunts against the gays, she decided to take over Foreign Affairs and appointed her own special adviser to give 'perspective' on all the lies and evasions that the FCO do so very well.
The upshot was the resignation of the side-lined Foreign Secretary, the lovely Geoffrey Howe. His subsequent resignation speech in the House was the beginnning of the end of La Thatcher.
The seriously flawed American plan seems to be to allow Israel to continue to destroy Lebanon, as it is all part of that old favourite, the war on terror. TWOT is used in all sorts of guises these days, from Russsian imperial expansion into Chechnya to Indonesian internal repression to, it seems, Israeli use of collective punishment.
TWOT can be used to justify any crime.
It is a shame that Margaret Beckett, that loyalist of loyalists, stalwart of the Labour movement, will not be the one to stand up to Blair and TELL him that we must be more even handed. It is hard to see how any meaningful debate with the Muslim community here and abroad can start when out entire foreign policy is Muslim bad, anyone else good. We are standing on the sidelines cheering Israel on as it reigns death and terror on innocent Lebanese, whose crime is to be alive. It is a shameful position, truly shameful and one that every single one of our EU partners rejects in favour of NO killing, NO bombings, NO air strikes
One can only hope that the Labour party will see some sense at the party conference. This last act of dictatorship by Blair might be the catalyst that sees him become a former prime minister at a time of our choosing, not his.
