If any Londoner had any doubts about the true purpose of President Bush's visit to Britain, a quick stroll around Buckingham Palace last week would have surely erased them, reports Alistair Alexander from London Navigating their way through the 14,000 extra policeman on duty in London, they would have seen flagpoles draped alternately with outsized American and British flags stretching into the distance from the palace. Within the palace grounds itself, a bizarre stage set that looked like a Disney medieval fantasy had been tacked onto the palace's façade for the president to receive his guests. Facing this stage was a multi-level gantry built onto the side of the monumental Victoria Memorial just outside the palace gates, apparently constructed to ensure the perfect TV footage. As Robin Cook, former cabinet minister and prominent critic of the war on Iraq wryly observed, the president's visit was indeed "the mother of all photo opportunities". An invitation to a ceremonial state visit is a curious honour for Bush to receive. None of his predecessors wasted their time with the fading pomp and pageantry of an empire long since become dust. So this peculiar privilege has normally been afforded to lesser leaders of the world; Ceaucescu of Romania, Suharto of Indonesia and Robert Mugabe have all graciously accepted the honour. But for Bush, a visit to one of his diminishing clutch of allies might be a vital element in his re-election campaign as he struggles to convince Americans of his qualities as a global statesman. And if Britain now has little use for its ceremonial trappings of empire, it surely couldn't do any harm if the president borrowed them for a few days. Fortunately for Bush, he could scarcely have a more obliging host than Tony Blair. Less fortunately, however, other Britons were not so welcoming. With political wounds from the war of Iraq still decidedly raw, few in Britain were in the mood to greet the United States president with outstretched arms. So, unsurprisingly, the traditional procession in an open-topped car was hastily cancelled, officially for security reasons. And in the weeks leading up to the visit the British news was peppered with ever more outlandish demands from American security officials -- for central London to be sealed off as a "sterile" zone, for the underground metro system to be closed during the visit and for US security agents to be able to operate a "shoot to kill" policy with immunity from British law. Most of these demands were refused, but their delivery hardly endeared the president to the natives. Privately British government officials were "dreading" Bush's arrival. When the visit was first suggested 18 months ago it was planned more-or-less as a victory parade. But with Iraq descending into chaos there is little in the way of victory to savour. Furthermore, Britain's relations with the US have been strained by the continuing incarceration without trial of nine Britons in Guantanamo Bay, as well as US objections to a European Defence force. To cap it off, Europe has just been given the green light to impose massive trade sanctions on US imports over America's illegal steel tariffs. Tony Blair likes to claim that his very public support of the US wins him influence in private. But in these issues as in others Blair can offer precious little evidence in his defence. As with so many aspects of the so-called "special relationship", most British people could see the advantage of the visit for the president, but few could discern the benefits for Britain. Bush's visit did, however, help to mobilise a wide array of political activists into protest throughout his visit. Over the three days of the president's visit, there were demonstrations by climate change activists, human rights campaigners (dressed up as inmates of Guantanamo Bay) and anti-globalisers. And for the Stop the War Coalition, flagging since the invasion of Iraq, Bush's visit provided the perfect opportunity for re-galvanisation. Plans for a demonstration were in place months before the visit, but momentum for their demonstration only began building after Blair attacked anti-war protestors in a speech on 10 November. "Protest if you will; that is your democratic right," he chided. "But accept that the task now is not to argue about what has been, but to make what is happening now work, and work for the very Iraqis we all say we want to help." Alas for Blair, huge numbers of Britons are not yet ready to "move on" the way government officials hope, and even fewer have confidence that the current administration in Iraq -- if it can be called that -- is doing anything at all to help Iraqis. But these are mere details. And Blair is nothing if not a "big picture" politician. Still, Blair's comments provoked interest in the anti-war movement not seen since before the invasion of Iraq began. And in an uncanny repeat of the build-up to the march in February, a prolonged dispute with the police over the route of the protest added fuel. The result was that last Thursday's demonstration was by far the largest anti-war march since February. Numbers on large rallies are always hard to gauge. But if Trafalgar Square holds a 100,000 people, as is often suggested, then there could have been up to twice that number -- a huge turn out on a working day. The climax of the rally was the toppling of a 20-foot-high golden effigy of Bush; an inspired parody of the toppling of Saddam's statue in Baghdad that played far better on TV than any of Bush's photo-calls. In the event, however, both Bush and his effigy were overshadowed by attacks in Istanbul on the British Consulate and the offices of HSBC bank that killed 30 people. Remarkably, these were the first suspected Al-Qa'eda attacks that directly targeted British interests. Both leaders were predictably quick to condemn the bombings with the usual blandishments. Blair committed himself to attacking terrorism "wherever and whenever we can and ... defeating it utterly". Even for a leader addicted to sound-bite politics like Blair, rarely has one of his pronouncements rang so hollow; after two wars fought supposedly to defeat terrorism, the terrorists appear to be more resurgent than defeated. But for Blair, however sharply the bombings reveal the shortcomings of their war on terrorism, they also helped to draw attention away from the embarrassment of Bush's visit. And such is the cynicism in Downing Street of late, that many officials will have no doubt been relieved to see their PR disaster eclipsed by a real one.
