‘Special Relationship’

Just in case anyone missed it, a few of the requests that the US has made for protecting President Bush during his state visit to London this week: immunity from prosecution should any Secret Service agents kill anyone (or, indeed, everyone), shutdown of the London Underground system, use of miniguns for crowd control (!), and a sterile zone patrolled only by US personnel. These requests have all been turned down by the UK government. The jury is still out on whether they will shutdown the mobile phone networks to stop those sneaky terrorists using peer-to-peer to organise their movements. Given that these are the requests that have been made public, god only knows what is going on behind the scenes…