Maybe some of you nice folks across the pond, or those who get their news from sources other than Comedy Central can help enlighten me.

Well, I get most of my news from news.bbc.co.uk (my favourite quote being "The government, which takes 80% of the price of petrol in taxation, says it sees no way of reducing petrol prices in the short term") except on Northern Ireland where us.cnn.com is more impartial.

And as boxer says, no-one in Britain knows what Blair's game is either. Up until now his image has been that of a leader who is utterly focused on populism rather than on any large-scale political convictions -- his, nominally socialist, Labour Party has literally swept all before it as it has wandered, under his leadership, from left to centre-left to centre to centre-right. The other major parties are now all huddled to the right of him, while in the wasteland to the left there's nothing but Tony Benn, Michael Foot, and the Communist Party -- in other words, nothing remotely electable.

And then came Iraq. And suddenly Mr Focus Group became Mr Lonely Responsibility Of Command. No-one can figure out why he adopted or is persisting with policy more unpopular even than the Poll Tax (a scheme over which public opposition scared even Margaret Thatcher into a rapid U-turn).

As I said over on some other discussion board: Turkey, a relatively poor country, was offered twenty billion dollars to be America's bitch, and turned it down. What was Blair offered?

Peter