Hmmm. According to yesterday's Sun:

TORY leader Michael Howard has been barred from the White House and told he will never meet President George Bush, it emerged last night. The bombshell ban was slapped on Mr Howard after he called for Tony Blair to quit over the Iraq War. And it was reinforced last month when he said he would have vetoed military action if he had known the full facts about Iraq’s WMD arsenal. ...The wrath of the President was transmitted to Mr Howard’s office in a furious phone call from White House political chief Karl Rove in February. It followed Mr Howard’s call for Mr Blair to step down as PM. What particularly upset the White House was Mr Howard’s comment: “If I were Prime Minister I would seriously be considering my position.” They were also angered when the Tory leader accused the PM of “serious dereliction of duty”. Mr Rove, who speaks with the President’s full authority, said: “You can forget about meeting the President full stop. Don’t bother coming, you are not meeting him.”

...Senior US Right-wingers blame Mr Howard for undermining the coalition in Iraq and say they are privately rooting for a Labour victory in the next election. A Tory source said: “They see Tony Blair as a true ally against terror and the Tories as a bunch of w*****s.”

Now we learn that Mr Howard has responded:

Michael Howard issued a blistering rebuff to George W Bush yesterday after the President barred the Tory leader from the White House as punishment for his attacks on Tony Blair over the Iraq War.

...Yesterday, after the White House ban was disclosed in the strongly pro-Blair Sun, Mr Howard issued a strongly-worded statement: "A Conservative government would work very closely with President Bush or President Kerry but my job as leader of the Opposition is to say things as I see them in the interests of our country and to hold our Government to account.

"If some people in the White House, in their desire to protect Mr Blair, think I am too tough on Mr Blair or too critical of him, they are entitled to their opinion. But I shall continue to do my job as I see fit."

Mr Howard's aides went even further, insisting that he would "have nothing to do with those trying to sustain Tony Blair in office wherever they might be".

A senior aide said: "There had been channels of discussion open as to whether he should go to Washington when Karl Rove telephoned to tell him not to bother. Howard's reaction was very cool. He is not going to be cowed by anybody from criticising the Prime Minister."

The confrontation between Mr Bush and Mr Howard is the deepest split between an American president and a Conservative leader since the row between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher over the US invasion of Grenada in 1983. They rapidly resumed their close alliance after the crisis. However, the bitter and public division between President Bush and Mr Howard appears unbridgeable.

It is distasteful, of course, to kick a man when he's down. And down is surely the most appropriate word to apply to Mr Howard, who with every passing day reveals a level of incompetence which is so great as sometimes to seem almost premedidated.

I saw The Manchurian Candidate last month. It's dire, and not fit to share the same projector as the wonderful John Frankenheimer original. A marvellous premise is wasted: a Haliburton clone company (Manchurian International) takes over the mind (via an implant) of a Vice Presidential candidate and prepares to plant him in the Oval Office by assassinating the newly elected President. But it's worth seeing when it opens here for one, rather important, reason. It explains the current state of British politics.

Since almost everything said and done by Mr Howard has the effect of moving the Tories even further from credibility as a potential government, perhaps the key lies in The Manchurian Candidate.

I find it difficult to reconcile Mr Howard's blunderings as Leader of the Opposition with his outstanding performance as Home Secretary. But there is an explanation. I have come to the conclusion that Mr Howard is not himself. He must, it seems (a la Manchurian Candidate), have been kidnapped at some point by Labour strategists and brainwashed, programmed to make himself and his party look as ludicrous as possible. Thus he both supports and condemns the Iraq War. He claims to favour the market but would nationalise the universities. Etc, etc, etc.

As 'a Tory source' put it in The Sun:

They see Tony Blair as a true ally against terror and the Tories as a bunch of w*****s.

Pretty much spot on.

It still seems bizarre that a Labour Prime Minister hopes for a Republican victory and a Conservative Leader of the Opposition for a Democrat to occupy the Oval Office. But then, you see, these things don't happen by accident.