Up yours America, says the UK's Dauphin.

Gordon Brown, the UK's Prime Minister elect (so he thinks), has announced the basic principles of his junta's foreign policy. In effect, it is Up Yours America, or as the Daily Telegraph more properly summarises:

Gordon Brown vowed yesterday to take on President George W Bush and the Americans over foreign policy as he spelt out plans to break from Tony Blair's approach to the "war on terror".

The Chancellor, who is on course to succeed Mr Blair as Prime Minister this summer, made clear he wanted to place Britain's national interest above the special relationship with Washington.

The Guardian and the Independent also feature the story.

Obviously, Brown is playing to the anti-American rabble in the Parliamentary Labour Party but there has been no indication that he does not actually mean what he says. Yank-hating is a traditional Labour pastime and, despite Brown's claims to be the inventor of New Labour, he is, in fact, a traditional Labour dinosaur.

Since 1997, one of the major differences between Blair and Brown is that whereas, sometime on or about 9/11, Blair, to the surprise of many of his critics, suddenly grew up politically and started acting like a statesman, Brown did not. In a post yesterday, I noted that "The only contribution the Chancellor has made to Iraq is to kill some British troops by refusing to spend a few thousand pounds on life saving equipment."

How to explain the difference between Blair and Brown? In sporting terms, Blair has the broad vision and communication skills to make a good team manager but Brown is so obsessed with fine detail and so lacking in communication skills that he will never operate as other than a second-rate technical coach.

Tags: Gordon Brown, Foreign Policy, Tony Blair