Goodwill visit takes ironic turn

By Bridget Kendall BBC diplomatic correspondent

On the face of it, an unlikely scenario: one of the world's most high-powered women, top diplomat and stateswoman for the world's most powerful country taking two days out of her busy schedule to drop in on a small town in the north-west corner of England.

Ms Rice accepted a return invitation

But you have to go back to the genesis of this event to understand its purpose.

The runaway success of Condoleezza Rice's trip last year, when she took Britain's Jack Straw back to her roots in Birmingham, Alabama, naturally prompted a return invitation.

He wanted to show his friend, the US secretary of state that in Britain, too, daily life outside the capital was worth investigating.

And nowhere more so than in his own political constituency in Blackburn, Lancashire - like her Alabama birthplace, a provincial centre that has seen better days, with a mix of cultures and ethnic groups, striving to adapt to the fast pace of the 21st century.

So far, so good. Even the programme the British Foreign Office spent weeks in preparing took its cue from the American excursion.

On both occasions "the secretaries", as their officials call them, used rhetoric to jump from the local to the global, making speeches on the weighty subject of democracy, repeating the plea that more time is needed to entrench it in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

Informal note

In both places they endeavoured to strike an informal note, with visits to schools for a chatty question and answer session.

Condoleezza Rice even fielded the same question - would she run for President?- and again replied that it was not something she'd ever wanted.

And in both places they indulged their exuberant passion for sport. Jack Straw got to flip the coin and see an American football game at the University of Alabama.

Condoleezza Rice was not so lucky. She had to make do with a team shirt from Jack Straw's favourite soccer team, Blackburn Rovers, and a perfunctory tour of the stadium.

We always knew it was going to be a risk, but you've got to try it British official

But there the comparisons ended.

While American southern hospitality ensured that in Alabama Mr Straw received an enthusiastic welcome (even if some had only the vaguest idea who he was), the same was never going to be true of Condoleezza Rice on a visit to Britain.

She is better known, certainly, over here. And for many she's a much more intriguing figure. But she's also much more controversial.

Friendship bond

The point is, Americans by and large have little problem with British foreign policy and take it as a given that there is still a deep bond of friendship and shared beliefs between the two countries.

Yet since the Iraq war not all British citizens are quite so wholeheartedly in favour of this so called "special relationship".

The only thing I am looking forward to is the moment when it's over American diplomat

A growing number, it seems, have become uneasy about American foreign policy, especially with regard to Iraq and prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, and especially if they sense Britain is being treated as a junior partner.

And since it is George W Bush they hold mostly to blame, inevitably his former national security adviser, the charming but steely Ms Rice, who has been his right-hand aide on foreign policy ever since he took office, is going to be seen as partly responsible.

"We always knew it was going to be a risk, but you've got to try it," said one British official ahead of the visit, clearly already resigned to the danger that this American VIP tour might be overshadowed by demonstrations.

"The only thing I am looking forward to is the moment when it's over," said one American diplomat, clearly dismayed that this wasn't going to be a repeat of the Alabama love-in.

Outside the town hall in Blackburn on Saturday morning, the yellow-coated police, some bussed in from Liverpool, stood almost shoulder to shoulder in a cordon round the building.

Penned in

Even journalists covering the visit were treated with caution, kept firmly in a metal press pen when outside the building, and required to wait for official escorts to move between rooms inside.

Meanwhile, all morning the demonstrators, some dressed in orange jumpsuits with bags over their head, bayed at anyone who emerged from the building.

Some anti-war protesters wore orange jumpsuits

They also jumped and gestured in fury when they were granted two brief glimpses of the protagonists, arriving and departing.

Jack Straw, who must have been well aware of the potential for trouble, (he likes to boast of his habit of standing on a bench in front of the town hall to take on his local critics) tried to make light of the situation.

"They said they were going to get people in by the busload," he said. "They should have asked me, I could have done a much better job," he added jokingly.

The unflappable Ms Rice said: "I'm used to protests. They happen all the time on American campuses.

"It's all part of the exercise in democracy. And I did not find them off-putting nor did I find them in the least disconcerting."

A visit that was meant to help enhance the bond between Britain and America, may instead have served to highlight the growing differences Bridget Kendall

And she pointed out that she had come across plenty of people who were delighted that she had taken the trouble to come up north and hoped it would attract more global attention to the area.

Without giving much ground over the two days, she did her best to sound reasonable on US policy.

At times she was even conciliatory, admitting the US had made thousands of tactical errors in Iraq, even if its strategic aims were correct, in her view. (Though the following day, she hastily retreated: "I wasn't counting," she said, "I meant it figuratively.")

But overall it cannot be what the Foreign Office and the US State Department were hoping for.

It is true the protests that greeted her in both Blackburn and Liverpool, though noisy and full of passion, were relatively small.

And it was always going to be the case that in a town like Blackburn, which is over 20% Muslim in terms of population, there was likely to be more heartfelt opposition, and in some cases downright hostility.

But misgivings in Britain about President Bush's foreign policy extend far beyond Blackburn's Muslim community.

And so, ironically, a visit that was meant to help enhance the bond between Britain and America, may instead have served to highlight the growing differences.