William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, made a speech yesterday. It got all the public-relations hoopla push that the government machine can manage.

Appalling British attempt to make an international political thriller on a shoestring budget. You can't fault its ambition, but you can fault absolutely everything else about it.

Just been to the "Barack and Gordon" show, a press conference at the ornate Foreign Office. First name terms all the way, to the Prime Minister's delight. The President is not big on protocol, even sipping water from a bottle. But he was the star of this 50-minute show

Foreign Policy has produced an excellent map based on a Gallup poll it conducted asking people around the world which US political candidate they support. 60 per cent of Britons are behind Obama - but that's nothing on Kenya, where he can count on the backing of 89 per cent of the public.

When the Conservatives wanted to damn Gordon Brown's stance on 42 days earlier this week, they accused him of putting "his own interest before the national interest".

White House U-turn on UN

The Prime Minister's annual foreign policy address last night could hardly have come at a more critical juncture. Mr Blair was speaking just three days after his return from celebrating the "special relationship" with the newly re-elected George Bush and three days before the French President's state visit to this country to round off the centennial of the Entente Cordiale. It was the start of the week after Yasser Arafat's death; the US Secretary of State's resignation had been announced just hours before - and all this was happening against a backdrop of escalating violence in Iraq. Rarely can a Mansion House speech have been given amid such a foreign policy cacophony, with hope and despair, beginnings and endings, concord and discord all vying for precedence.

Sir: Many cheers for an ethical foreign policy. Pinochet should spend his time here in Wandsworth, albeit with a better chance of survival than his own victims.

British on death row

Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, yesterday told a committee of MPs that the RUC had to change as part of the peace process to end hostility over symbols, including its "Royal" title, writes Colin Brown.