Is Brown spinning the 'special relationship'?

Last Modified: 13 Jul 2007
By: Cathy Newman

Gordon Brown in a spin over the special relationship with America after a speech by a key cabinet ally in Washington.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown been choosing his words carefully on our relationship with the US after one of his closest cabinet allies appeared to distance Britain from America.

It was his protégée the international development secretary Douglas Alexander who forced the prime minister onto the airwaves. So did he gaffe or speak for his boss when he offered this coded criticism of US foreign policy:

"In the 20th century, a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy.

"In the 21st century, strength should be measured by what we can build together."

'In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st, strength should be measured by what we can build together.'
Douglas Alexander, international development secretary

He also spoke of the importance of a "rules-based international system" - a reference perhaps to the US failure to secure United Nations backing for the Iraq war.

This morning's papers were in no doubt that far from a blunder this was a message - approved by the prime minister - that Britain is no longer America's poodle.

The prime minister's spokesman reacted furiously this morning, saying that the papers' interpretation was "extraordinary" and "a nonsense".

But I understand that this supposedly spin-free government spun Douglas Alexander's speech to the press, encouraging them to interpret it as a subtle foreign policy shift. It's a dangerous game. One former foreign office minister told me that criticising America was "playing with fire".

The appointment of Mark Malloch Brown as a foreign office minister has already gone down badly in the US. In his previous job at the UN he was a fierce critic of President Bush. In a newspaper interview tomorrow he again attacks America over the Iraq war.

Gordon Brown went out of his way to hug the US close this morning. But foreign policy experts and opponents of the Iraq war think he speaks with forked tongue.

George Bush, talking today about his Iraq reconstruction plans, looks increasingly like a man on his way out. So in some ways Gordon Brown can afford to offend him.

But he knows at the end of the day America and Britain are batting for the same team. So today his spokesman promised he'd pay the US president a visit before the summer holidays.

Just days ago, his aides were briefing he wouldn't go until the autumn. But it would seem some friendships are still worth clearing the diary for.