UK DK

At the turn of the last century, Britain was the most powerful nation on earth. The British Empire, on which the sun never set, ruled a quarter of the world’s population and was the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

Today, Tony Blair has just taken off on his summer holidays - delayed while he sort of did something about the latest crisis in the Middle East.

‘Yo, Blair’ was how George Bush greeted the British prime minister at a recent international conference. And despite all Phony Tony’s sucking up, with his gift of a sweater, the US president was not minded to agree to Phony Tony getting involved in trying to initiate peace talks.

President Bush was not minded to lose much sleep over the plight of Hezbollah and was more than happy for the Israelis to do as they wished.

Of course there was subsequently a press conference with George Bush and Tony Blair standing side by side - allowing Tony Blair to grandstand.

Since then, the UN have told Britain in plain language to stay out and the current peace talks, which look set to fail, have been driven by the US and France.

So this is what Britain has sunk to. The measure of its power is now whether or not the British prime minister will be allowed to share a press conference with the US president.