The US: United States President George Bush has said he is not worried by predictions that mass anti-war protests will greet his state visit to the United Kingdom this week. "Aren't you lucky to be in a country that encourages people to speak their mind?" he told Sir David Frost on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme.
In a pre-recorded interview ahead of the visit which begins tomorrow night, the president declared: "I value going to a country where people are free to say anything they want to say." However 57 per cent of the British people surveyed in an ICM poll for the BBC's Politics Show said they felt the relationship between their Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and Mr Bush was too close, while 41 per cent said they thought it "about right".
And while Mr Blair insisted he had "no hesitation about either the importance or the timing" of the president's visit, former International Development Secretary Ms Clare Short said it was "very embarrassing" but that she hoped protests would remain peaceful.
Ms Short - who quit the cabinet after the Iraqi conflict in protest at the absence of UN authority for the country's reconstruction - told ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme: "The truth is they planned this visit when they thought the war was going to be very glorious and Tony would be seen as a very proud leader, and they stuck with it and it's very embarrassing, but here we are."
Amid revised predictions that as many as 200,000 anti-war protesters could converge on central London on Thursday, Ms Short said: "The people of Britain have to say to both leaders 'You have messed up badly, you have messed up the world, it's more dangerous, and this is what we've got to say to you'. "
Liberal Democrat spokesman Mr Menzies Campbell said: "This may be the wrong visit at the wrong time but President Bush should go back to Washington knowing that in Britain there are grave reservations about his foreign policy.
"The British people want to be satisfied that he will apply his whole mind to the Middle East peace process; to global warming and the environment; to recognition of the international criminal court; reinvigoration of the United Nations and a commitment to Iraqi people which will not be abandoned for the sake of his re-election campaign."
He continued: "If Mr Bush understands these things then his visit to that extent will have been worthwhile."
However Mr Robin Cook, who resigned the cabinet in opposition to the Iraq war, criticised Mr Bush after he told David Frost he was unsurprised by the extent of continuing Iraqi opposition and that the scale of the task had been anticipated.
Mr Cook said: "What concerned and disappointed me was that there was no sense in anything President Bush said that he feels anything was done wrong in Iraq.
He was saying they had perfect plans for the reconstruction, their planning for the aftermath was absolutely right - although plainly it was a much bigger mess than they ever anticipated and casualties continue to mount." Mr Cook went on: "What worries me is unless London and Washington start to recognise that mistakes were made, that plainly things did go wrong, then we won't learn the lessons."
Mr Cook also said he was "mystified" by the decision to honour the president with a full state visit.
Speaking on Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton, Mr Cook said: "When you think back to how closely we worked with President Clinton and how helpful he was to British interests, particularly on Northern Ireland, I do find it mystifying that the same Royal visits committee that decided President Clinton doesn't merit the honour of an official state visit should now decide that President Bush does." The visit, suggested Mr Cook, gave Mr Bush the "mother of all photo opportunities" in the run-up to the US presidential election.