It survived the suspension of nuclear co-operation after the Second World War and the Suez debacle, but last week a precious British delusion was shattered. The final humiliation of the so-called "special relationship" with America took place when David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, revealed to the House of Commons that his predecessor Jack Straw, and Tony Blair, the former prime minister, had both lied repeatedly. It was not their fault. U.S. President George W. Bush's administration had denied them crucial information.
The subject was the use of British sovereign territory to facilitate "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects. Every politically aware Briton knows what this opaque phrase means. Rendition is the legal transfer of prisoners from one country to another. The extraordinary variety is a darker, ignoble activity that bypasses the legal process. Critics allege it is used to facilitate torture.
Mr. Miliband explained that in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Mr. Blair and Mr. Straw denied allegations that American extraordinary rendition flights had landed on British soil. They were wrong. In fact, the British territory of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, was twice used to refuel American aircraft carrying prisoners. One flew on to the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. The other was bound for an unspecified location, possibly Morocco.
The Foreign Secretary said he was "very sorry indeed" to have to make such a humiliating correction. There had been an "error" in a search of U.S. records. It was nobody's fault, just a regrettable mistake of the type that happens in cordial relationships between friends. It did not, apparently, cross his mind, or those of his ministerial colleagues, that someone in the U.S. military, if not its government, must have authorized the landings.
It is inconceivable that the flights touched down on British territory without the knowledge of someone more senior than their flight crews. Equally plain is that nobody in the American chain of command felt any obligation to inform the British government that it had happened. America remained silent despite knowing that rendition was the subject of lively controversy in the British media and in Parliament.
Perhaps Mr. Miliband is preternaturally naive. His short tenure at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has provoked suspicion that he is a decade or three short of experience. But this does not resemble the fond partnership of equals the British government claims is its reward for loyalty to American foreign policy. The Foreign Secretary's refusal to criticize America for its execrable behaviour implies either dreadful myopia or nauseating subservience.
His reply to a question put to him during his Commons apology by Lynda Waltho, a fellow Labour MP, suggests subservience is the answer. "What's so special about a relationship in which one of the partners abuses trust and respect?" she asked. "The breach is not the defining element of our relationship with the United States," he replied. It is not clear that he was right about that either.
Mr. Miliband's confession of unintentional dishonesty is shameful for two reasons.
The minor one is that civil rights groups and liberal newspapers in Britain have long alleged that the CIA uses British military facilities to pursue a policy that is illegal under British law and the government repeatedly denied it categorically. It told one parliamentary committee, "We are clear that the U.S. would not render anyone through UK airspace (including overseas territories) without our permission."
The bigger shame becomes apparent when one considers what might have been the response if the roles had been reversed. I cannot imagine Condoleezza Rice telling either house of Congress that Britain had given dishonest assurances in good faith and the matter was now closed. If her President had been duped into lying about an issue of such sensitivity by an ally that had not bothered to check the facts, her wrath would have been unconfined.
Since the days of "Mac and Jack," when Harold MacMillan persuaded John F. Kennedy to renew Anglo-American nuclear weapons co-operation, Britain's "special relationship' with the U.S. has been extolled to British voters as rooted in what Mr. MacMillan called "a deep unity of purpose," reinforced by "a frank and honest appreciation of each other's good faith."
It has long taken optimism to believe that. In the aftermath of Mr. Miliband's statement it is nigh impossible. There is not the tiniest soupçon of unity or good faith in the casual manner in which this Republican administration has abused British goodwill. It is now imperative that the British government express its anger vehemently and in public.
Mr. Miliband's relaxed description of the controversy as a "most serious matter," plays to residual British snobbery that Brits are culturally and intellectually more sophisticated than Americans. But that is not nearly enough. If the special relationship is to be revived, America must understand that Britain is not a feeble pushover that will accept every humiliation and trot back panting for more. On current form, that may require the departure of a pusillanimous foreign secretary as well as President Bush.
Tim Luckhurst is a former editor of The Scotsman and a professor of journalism at the University of Kent