Former adviser attacks Blair for supporting Bush

George W Bush and Tony Blair

A former adviser to Tony Blair accused the Prime Minister of a 'bunker' mentality by supporting George W Bush over the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Sir Stephen Wall, a highly respected specialist on foreign affairs, launched a coruscating attack on Mr Blair for his failure to demand an immediate ceasefire and condemn the bombing of innocent civilians.

But the most damaging criticism of Mr Blair by one of his most trusted former Downing Street aides is that the Prime Minister is out of touch with public opinion and has become bound by a 'bunker' mentality.

Sir Stephen blames Mr Blair's conviction 'that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US President' for a loss of moral authority by the Prime Minister.

"Realism about an independent foreign policy is sensible, not least on the 50th anniversary of Suez," Sir Stephen writes in the New Statesman.

"This government, however, has taken to unprecedented lengths the view that Britain's influence on the US can be exercised only in private. It has too readily lost sight of the fact that Britain's interests and those of the US are not identical."

His remarks came as 56 cross-party MPs signed a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, and there was growing pressure on Mr Blair to use his visit to Washington tomorrow to demand a halt to the Israeli bombing of civilian targets.

Sir Stephen adds: "There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime minister should have been thinking less about private influence and more about public advocacy. Could the Prime Minister really not speak up for the simple proposition that the slaughter of innocent people in Lebanon, the destruction of their country and the ruin of half a million lives were wrong and should stop immediately?"

Sir Stephen, who left Downing Street in 2004 to take up a post with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, accuses Mr Blair of allowing President Bush to 'set the bearings of our moral compass'.

He rejects the claims by the Prime Minister's official spokesman in Number Ten in past days that he is using behind the scenes influence rather than headline grabbing soundbites.

Sir Stephen says Mr Blair is right to sympathise with Israel's plight and to condemn Hizbollah but that does "not justify silence or adequately explain the reasons for it. One reason is that in their bunkers, leaders become isolated from the world outside".

He said John Major led the rescue of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991 because he saw their plight on television, and was shocked into action.

More damaging for Mr Blair, he compares the Prime Minister to being as out of touch with public opinion as Margaret Thatcher at the end of her term in office.

David Owen, the former SDP leader, said Lady Thatcher reached the point where her political antennae were able only to broadcast and no longer to receive.

"Blair has supreme confidence in his own judgement. Let us hope that the reflected light from the TV screens, even now, serves to illuminate the bunker," says Sir Stephen.

- INDEPENDENT