Earthy Bush Gibe Denied

Amid plummeting public support in Britain for backing America’s policy in the war on terrorism, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott denied Thursday that he called President Bush a “cowboy with his Stetson hat” whose progress on a Middle East peace plan was “crap.”

The tempest over Prescott’s purported remarks in a private meeting with fellow Labor Party lawmakers underscored growing misgivings within the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who until now has been the Bush administration’s strongest ally on Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Lebanon.

Harry Cohen, a Labor member of Parliament who attended the meeting, said Prescott was expressing strong frustration over Washington’s inability to make progress on a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a sentiment he said was shared by a growing number of lawmakers in Blair’s camp.

“What he was saying was he only supported the war in Iraq because of the ‘road map,’ and he was lamenting the lack of progress on the road map, and he said the Bush administration was crap in relation to the road map,” Cohen said in an interview, referring to the U.S.-backed plan for reaching a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

“It followed straight on when he said Bush is acting a bit like a cowboy with his Stetson hat,” Cohen said.

Prescott, in effect, denied the account.

“This is an inaccurate report of a private conversation,” and it is not the deputy prime minister’s view, his office said in a statement to the Press Assn.

Shahid Malik, another Labor lawmaker present at the meeting, declined to discuss it in detail, but said: “I support fully John Prescott’s comments on his comments. I think it’s been blown out of proportion somewhat.”

The Guardian newspaper said two other Labor lawmakers present had confirmed the substance of the account.

The larger issue -- sharply declining public support for Washington’s lead in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism -- was made clear with the release of a new poll that showed 14% of respondents thought Britain should continue to closely align its foreign policy with that of the United States.

Eight percent said they believed that the war against terrorism announced by Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks was being won, according to the poll, conducted this week for Spectator magazine.

On the other hand, 12% believed Britain should adopt a “more conciliatory” approach toward the terrorist threat; 63% thought it was necessary to be “more aggressive.”

Prescott’s purported remarks were widely reported in Britain but were not seen as a significant splinter in the government’s pro-Washington orientation, largely because Blair continues to forcefully endorse Bush’s strategy and Prescott has been shaken by so many domestic scandals that he is seen as a political has-been.

The alleged remark about Bush’s Stetson hat was intended self-deprecatingly, Cohen said. It was an apparent reference to the scandal that followed Prescott’s failure to report a trip to the ranch of U.S. billionaire Philip Anschutz and the businessman’s gift of a cowboy outfit, including boots and a Stetson hat.

“He said, ‘I can hardly talk,’ because he was involved in this other scandal where he had the cowboy outfit,” Cohen said.

But many of those present agreed with the deputy prime minister’s purported comments about the Middle East, Cohen added. “It was a fair point. He might not have wanted to get that colorful language into the public domain, he might be embarrassed and deny it for political expedience, but I think the central point is right.”

He said there was a “robust discussion” among all the Parliament members over the lack of progress in the Middle East.

“All the other MPs were making the point that really we should have a more independent foreign policy that’s in Britain’s interests; we shouldn’t just follow blindly whatever the United States sets up as its foreign policy,” Cohen said.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the British prime minister remained “a firm ally of the United States in the war on terror.”