Tony Blair performed very well in the Parliamentary debate on Iraq. For most of the time, he was calm and reasoned. Like the consummate politician he is, he deftly sidestepped the most awkward question of the day: would Britain support an American strike on Iraq if it was opposed by the United Nations?

Blair doesn't want to answer that question, and who can blame him? As he rightly says, we haven't yet got to the point of launching military action. So for now, he's happy to stress the points on which most people in Britain can agree: that Saddam Hussein isn't a fit person to be left in control of weapons of mass destruction, and that the United Nations should be involved in any international action that is to be taken against Iraq.

The choice between backing the United Nations or the United States doesn't yet have to be made, and the Prime Minister must be hoping against hope that he never has to make that choice. Support the US in those circumstances, and Britain would be likely to alienate its
European partners. The UK would rightly be regarded as America's blindly loyal sidekick, and become more of a terrorist target than ever before.

However, to refuse to join in an American attack on Iraq would jeopardise the supposed 'special relationship' between the United States and Britain to which Blair is so addicted. He made the strength of his feelings about that relationship clear during the Commons debate, declaring: '...I have seen a lot about the American relationship and criticisms of it. I believed this before I became Prime Minister, but I believe it even more strongly - in fact, very strongly; it is an article of faith with me - that the American relationship and our ability to partner America in these difficult issues is of fundamental importance, not just to this country but to the wider world.'

'Those people who want to pull apart the transatlantic relationship... or who can sneer about the American relationship that we have, may get some short-term benefit, but, long term, that is very dangerous to the people of this country.'

Why? Here, I'm afraid, I'm with the sneerers. So dominant is the United States in this supposed 'relationship' that it often seems rather like the sort of special relationship for which furtive men pay whip-wielding women. It's sometimes suggested that the 'special relationship' guarantees British prime ministers a sympathetic hearing from the American president of the day, and so gives Britain some sort of influence over American government policy - but if so, then such influence is often well disguised. It didn't for instance, stop the

Bush administration from slapping punitive tariffs on imported steel in March this year. The decision was hugely damaging to the British steel industry. Blair protested to Washington and was ignored.

The Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond got to the heart of the matter during the debates when he made reference to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's complaints about the newly re-elected German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's refusal to support the Bush
adminstration's position on Iraq.

Mr Salmond observed: 'I note that yesterday Mr Rumsfeld said that Chancellor Schroeder's comments were poisoning the relationship between Germany and the United States. Is it not rather more possible that some of Mr Rumsfeld's comments are poisoning the relationship between America and the rest of the world?'

'Might it not be true that, at this particular moment, with so much at stake for all of us, what America desperately needs is a candid friend to tell the truth, not a cheerleader willing to pay a "blood price"?'

I couldn't agree more.

Whilst reading and hearing about Schroeder's remarkable victory in the German election, I found myself envying German voters. I wish I lived in a country with an electoral system that made it possible for people with genuinely radical and progressive ideas to become partners in government, as the Greens are in Germany. I wish, also, that I lived in a country with a leader who, like Schroeder, is willing to be a candid friend to the United States and not a blindly loyal follower.

UK media coverage of Schroeder's success often focused on the damage he and his party had done to relations between Germany and the USA. Many media people seemed shocked that someone openly hostile to American policy could be the leader of a major European country But Schroeder's stance on Iraq certainly doesn't seem to have damaged his domestic popularity.

So I don't think that the British Liberal Democrats will suffer electorally as a result of their opposition to the American attitude on Iraq. I've been so impressed by the strong stance taken by their leader Charles Kennedy on this issue that I'm now seriously considering joining his party, and I don't doubt that many others will be feeling the same way. On the Iraq issue, Liberal Democrats are the only one of the three biggest UK parties speaking for what most opinion polls suggest is the majority view in Britain: those of us who do not want war and have yet to be convinced that a war is necessary.

In the Commons this week, Kennedy raised a series of crucial questions about what would happen to Iraq after a 'regime change'. He spoke out against Rumsfeld's belligerent rhetoric, asking the Prime Minister: 'When the American Defence Secretary speaks of a
"decapitation strategy" with a view to Iraq, does he reflect the mind processes of the British Government? Should we not instead be talking about the longer-term need for a rehabilitation strategy for Iraq, not least for its innocent, oppressed people with whom none of us has any
argument whatever?'

Kennedy was barracked by Conservative MPs, but was able to retort: 'I am only asking questions unasked by the leader of the Conservative Party' . It was a good point. Britain needs an effective Leader of the Opposition; and since Iain Duncan Smith seems unable to do the job, Kennedy is doing the nation all a service by stepping into the breach.

During the Commons debate, Blair became a little tetchy when the US government's stated aim of 'regime change' in Iraq was questioned by MPs. He complained: 'I consider it odd that people can find the notion of regime change in Iraq somehow distasteful. Regime change in
Iraq would be a wonderful thing.'

Of course it would. The long-awaited dossier of evidence against Iraq was unconvincing on many points: most significantly, it doesn't document any link between the regime in Baghdad and the al-Qaeda terrorist network. But no-one's disputing the dossier's findings about the dreadfully brutal ways in which Saddam retains control in Iraq. His regime is a monstrous one - a dictatorship maintained by means of murder and torture.

It's not the prospect of saying goodbye to Saddam that is disturbing. It's the way that the Bush administration apparently believes that it has the right to remove by force any foreign
government that it doesn't like the look of, even if the nation that government leads poses no immediate threat to America. It's the attitude, strongly implicit in many of Bush's recent pronouncements, that other nations govern themselves only by permission of the United States, and that any national leader who is deemed by Washington to be 'out of line' will be made to pay.

Such feelings were neatly encapsulated by Charles Kennedy at the Liberal Democrat party conference, when he asked: 'Am I alone in feeling increasingly concerned about this concept called "regime change"? I think not. Who decides the legitimacy of such change? On what basis in international law? And with what ultimate objectives in mind?'

'I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer to those questions. There is more than a hint of imperialism here. '

'Am I alone in worrying about the undermining of the moral, legal and practical authority of the United Nations? Again, I think not.'

I think that Mr Kennedy is very far indeed from being alone in feeling concerned about such things. I also think that the Bush administration is greatly increasing the amount of anti-American feeling around the world with its grotesquely arrogant attitudes.

In such difficult times, it's important that all of us watching from outside the

USA remember the huge difference between the Bush administration and 'America' or 'the

Americans'. It shouldn't be forgotten that, according to an opinion poll much quoted on the

BBC this week, most Americans oppose military action against Iraq without United Nations

backing, and that many Americans are very unhappy indeed about the way their government is

behaving.

Among them is the man who got the most votes in the 2000 Presidential election, Al Gore.

Speaking at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco this week, Gore said: 'After

September 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world. We've

squandered that, and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at

what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do.'

He added: 'I don't think we should allow anything to diminish our focus on the necessity

for avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered, and dismantling that network of

terrorists that we know were responsible for it. The fact that we don't know where they are

should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location might be easier to

identify. '

'Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to

another.'

Gore has been savaged in some parts of the American media for expressing such dissident

views, but he was only pointing out unpalatable truths. The 'fear, anxiety and uncertainty' of

which he spoke was clearly expressed in the German election result, and will be expressed

again in the major anti-war demonstration taking place in London this weekend.

Gore is far from being a lone voice in American politics when he attacks Bush's approach to

international relations. Senator Robert C. Byrd from West Virginia voiced the suspicions of

many last week when he questioned the motives for Bush’s sudden attack of war fever:

'This administration, all of a sudden, wants to go to war with Iraq. The polls are

dropping, the domestic situation has problems.... So all of a sudden we have this war talk, war

fervour, the bugles of war, drums of war, clouds of war.'

'Don’t tell me that things suddenly went wrong. Back in August, the president had no

plans.... Then all of a sudden this country is going to war. Are politicians talking about the

domestic situation, the stock market, weaknesses in the economy, jobs that are being lost,

housing problems? No...'

'Instead of using the forum of the UN General Assembly to offer evidence and proof of

his claims, the President basically told the nations of the world that you are either with me or

against me. We must not be hell-bent on an invasion until we have exhausted every other

possible option to assess and eliminate Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction

programme. We must not act alone. We must have the support of the world.'

'With the economy ailing, the war in Afghanistan bogging down and the administration

trying to dodge growing indications of security failures related to 9/11, a war build-up is a

perfect political answer. It diverts attention from inconvenient issues and puts Democrats in a

lose-lose situation. If they dare to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes, they will be

attacked as unpatriotic. If they bend to the hysteria and try to out-warmonger the

warmongers (as some have clearly chosen to do), they will be perceived as a pallid imitation of

the real thing.'

'This war-hysteria-as-electoral-strategy is callous beyond comprehension. It will cost

many thousands of lives, both of our troops and innumerable Iraqi civilians and conscripts. It

will require a massive US occupation for years to come. And most important, it will make

Americans less, not more, safe.'

I could quote many other voices from America speaking out against the murderous folly of

the rush to war. I hope they can continue making themselves heard above the sound of

sabre-rattling.

Finally this week, news of a couple of eccentric European variations on a great

American invention: going to the movies.

The world's smallest cinema is due to open this week in Nottingham, UK. The Screen Room

has just 21 seats - believed to be one less than the Terrace Theatre in Australia, the current

holder of the 'world's smallest cinema' title.

The Screen Room is opening with a screening of a film I can warmly recommend: Lost in La

Mancha, a poignant, funny and compelling documentary about Terry

Gilliam's unsuccessful attempt to shoot a new movie based on the story of Don

Quixote. The few who manage to squeeze into the Screen Room to see it should be well

entertained.

The compact cinema's manager Steve Metcalf enthuses: 'We believe that this will be the

smallest single-screen cinema anywhere in the world, and intend to contact the Guinness Book

of Records to rubber stamp that. It has a very raffish feel inside, and is something very

different to the bland, large scale cinemas.'

Nobody will be able to argue with that.

But here's something else again for film fans. I love going to the movies and going to the

swimming pool, but I'd never thought of combining the two experiences.

Meeno van Wees thought of it, though. He's the owner of a cinema in Enkhuizen in the

Netherlands, where patrons can watch films whilst sitting in a pool of warm water. The

experiment has got off to a good start, with sell-out attendances for the first week of aquatic

picture shows and positive responses from the punters. After the opening night, featuring a

screening of Bridget Jones' Diary, cinemagoer Miep Dreesen commented: 'It was quite

cosy. The water was a nice temperature. Coming out of the pool was a little bit cold, but they

gave us warm towels and invited us inside where we could have a warm drink.'

Mr van Wees has explained that he came up with the idea during a meeting with a tub

manufacturer. Originally, it was to have been a one-off promotion for the Enkhuizen cinema,

but success has changed his mind: 'Since more people are interested, I¹d like to make a

tour with this project in the rest of the country as well.'

Sounds like a good idea, although he'll have to choose the films with care. Splash or the new

movie Swimfan might be OK. Titanic or Jaws probably wouldn't be such a good idea.

Ormy's 'Notes' and Other
Scribblings

The definitive collection

Ormondroyd

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