Sunday, June 15, 2008

Bush has tea with Queen & beef with PM


George Bush visited Britain today in as part of his last European tour as president. Arriving at Heathrow he and his wife Laura stepped from Air Force One waving to the assembled media. The President and his wife, who wearing a bright turquoise outfit, was then flown by Marine One to Windsor Castle to meet with Queen Elizabeth II. After tea with the Queen the party was back in the air back to central London where he was due to meet with Gordon Brown.
His visit brought out around 3,000 anti-war protesters under the umbrella of the ‘Stop the War Coalition’. However many groups used the opportunity to air their differing causes.
There were a few clashes between protesters but the protest passed of generally peacefully though 13 arrests were made. Sky News and the BBC both broadcast Live pictures from the front line of the protest group which was kept well back from Downing Street. Lines of police backed up by riot police and van stretched across the entire width of Whitehall. One protester told Sky’s Ashish Joshi that it was important for people to come out and protest whilst they still could and spoke of her “fear of a police state developing in this country”. Another demonstrator meanwhile held a banner in camera shot which read 'google Architects and Engineers for 9/11'. But as George Bush and Laura, now wearing a peach outfit, stepped from their cavalcade into Downing Street they saw little of the protests. After posing for photographs with Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah they entered No. 10 where they dined tonight. Bush looked relaxed as he jostled a rather wooden Gordon Brown into position for the photographers.
Formal talks will start on Monday [BBC], but he has already given an Exclusive interview with Sky News where he spoke about the War on Terror and the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was asked by Adam Bolton whether he’d make a special effort to catch Osama bin Laden. He evaded the main thrust of the question but said he would like to see him caught. He added that hr regretted saying he wanted Osama “dead or alive” early on in his ingoing War on Terror. “It makes it look like I like war which I don’t”, he said, but excused himself due to its being unscripted. “I was just speaking my mind, but I shouldn’t of said it” he added. He insisted he had “not sacrificed his core principles” in order to obtain popularity throughout his presidency. After feasting on smoked salmon followed by roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, the President and the first lady left Downing Street shortly before 10 pm still well out of sight of the few remaining demonstrators.

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