Cherie Blair lambasts Bush

2004-10-31 08:29

London - Cherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister, has criticised the policies of the US President George W Bush, attacking his stance on terrorist prisoners and gay rights, according to media reports here on Sunday.

Blair, a lawyer on a lecture tour of the United States, was condemned by supporters of the US President after a speech to Harvard law students in Massachusetts which contained a stinging rebuke to Bush, the Scotland on Sunday newspaper reported on its website.

"She attacked the manner in which the White House has dealt with the human rights of UK citizens detained at the US-run Camp X-Ray prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba," according to the report.

Blair said the decision by the US Supreme Court, fiercely opposed by Bush's government, to give legal protection to two of the Britons detained at the camp was "profoundly important" and a "significant victory for human rights and the international rule of law", the paper continued.

She also took issue with Bushs record on gay rights, condemning the arrest of a homosexual couple in the President's home state of Texas, for defying a ban on gay sex.

She described the US Supreme Courts decision to throw out the law, which had been backed by Bush, as a "model of judicial reasoning", the paper said.

An 'outdated grandfather clock'

Blair was also quoted as calling the US legal code an "outdated grandfather clock".

The British opposition Conservatives complained that the prime minister's wife had flouted the convention that British political figures do not act in a partisan way when abroad, the BBC said on its website.

"Doing so just days before the US elections makes the intervention all the more embarrassing for Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as Bush," Scotland on Sunday opined.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "These were not political opinions but, as an international human rights lawyer, she was expressing a view about the use of the Supreme Court in the American judicial system."

A majority in Britain believe the world will be safer if Democrat challenger John Kerry wins this week's US presidential election, suggests an opinion poll published on Sunday.

Asked whether the world would be a safer place if US President George W Bush rather than Kerry won Tuesday's poll, 24% said it would be, 56% disagreed and 20% did not know.

The Communicate Research poll for the Independent on Sunday newspaper also suggests that Prime Minister Tony Blair's staunch support for Bush over the Iraq conflict has been bad for Britain.

Asked whether Blair's support for Bush in Iraq has been good for Britain, 19% agreed, 74% did not agree, and 7% said they did not know. Despite Blair's troubles over Iraq, the poll showed his Labour party extending its lead over the opposition Conservatives by four points.

Asked how they would vote if there were a general election tomorrow, 39% said Labour, a seven-point rise since the last equivalent poll a month ago.

- AFP