Tony Blair's relationship with George Bush is one of his greatest political weaknesses: each time he appears with the US president, his popularity ratings fall. Still, the links looked to get a little closer yesterday, with a focus on security in the pre-election Queen's speech that would not have shamed the US Republican party.
What few would have expected was that Peter Hain, the leader of the Commons, was about to take the opportunity to move closer to the US vice-president, Dick Cheney - but that is exactly what he did. Where Mr Cheney warned that the danger of a John Kerry presidency was that "We'll get hit again", Mr Hain warned that the risk from terrorism "would be lower under Labour" than either the Tories or the Liberal Democrats. Despite accusations that he was playing politics with terror, he has refused to backtrack.
We now wait to see whether Mr Hain will follow Mr Cheney to the next stage: invoking the threat of a nuclear strike on a big city and questioning whether the opposition would be able to handle it.
