Ewen MacAskill and Julian Glover (Extracted from "Meyer reveals 'Blair's pygmies' ", The Guardian, 8 November 2005)

"Many of the British ministers who visited Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war were political pygmies who failed to win the respect of their US counterparts, according to the former British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer."

[Ed Hitherto, I've had a lot of time for for Sir Christopher Meyer, the UK Ambassador to the US who resigned just before the invasion of Iraq. But not since I have read the extracts of his memoirs which are now appearing in the press. Besides the ad hominem comments above which even ex-ambassadors are not supposed to display, he is curiously evasive when he comes to describe Present Bush and Vice-president Cheney. Of Bush, he does not say that he is "intelligent" or "well-informed", but that he is a "good conversationalist". Well, he may be -- among his own small group. But he's only given six White House dinners in the five years of his presidency; he never attends any cultural or social events outside the White House (not even his own daughters' graduation ceremonies); he has never had private or extended conversations with any other national leader with the exception of Tony Blair and Crown Prince Abdullah. Of Cheney, Meyer omits to say anything at all. It is widely acknowledged now that Cheney has been the real architect of US policies in the past five years. Apart from saying that he met with Cheney often, Meyer does not say a single word about his abilities or character. That's a major flaw in Cheney's memoirs.]