UK Cabinet ministers 'acted like political pygmies in Washington'

MANY of Britain's leading politicians failed to gain the respect of their US counterparts when they visited the American capital in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to Britain's former ambassador to Washington.

Some of the country's most senior Cabinet members come under fire for being "political pygmies" in their dealings with the US administration, in the latest extract to be published of Sir Christopher Meyer's memoirs.

In his book, DC Confidential - serialised in the Guardian and the Daily Mail - the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, the former defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, and the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, come in for particular criticism.

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Sir Christopher said that, on a visit to Washington in 1999, Mr Straw, then home secretary, was "mystifyingly tongue-tied in the unthreatening presence of Janet Reno, the attorney-general, and Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI".

While Mr Straw "took a long time to find his feet" as Foreign Secretary, his "uncertain touch was as nothing compared with poor old John Prescott", Sir Christopher wrote.

He said that Mr Prescott got into a "terrible tangle" during a conversation with a senator in which he talked about war in the "Balklands" and "Kovosa".

Referring to Mr Hoon, he said it was hard to find a "common wavelength" between him and the "intimidating" US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

"It was like getting pandas to mate. Hoon got nervous in Rumsfeld's presence."

Only the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the Defence Secretary, John Reid, stood out, "like Masai warriors in a crowd of pygmies". Elsewhere in the memoirs, Sir Christopher claims Tony Blair was so "seduced" by the power of the United States that he failed to halt the rush to war.

"Tony Blair chose to take his stand against Saddam and alongside president Bush from the highest of high moral ground. It is the definitive riposte to Blair the Poodle, seduced though he and his team always appeared to be by the proximity and glamour of American power."