IMPEACH BUSH

IN THE semantically sensitive world of international diplomacy, words have to be precise, for on them ride the foundations of the relationship between countries. Weeks into his premiership and with everything from the constitution to calls for a new coalition up for grabs, it would appear this weekend that Gordon Brown's intended foreign policy objectives - and in particular his desired interpretation of the "special relationship" with the United States - is far from crystal clear.

After five years of US-dominated war planning in Iraq, with Tony Blair widely regarded as a subservient poodle to George W Bush's White House inner sanctum, the relationship between the new UK prime minister and US president was never going to be anything else but fluid. What is clear, however, even in the fog of recent speeches from two of his ministers, is that Brown won't be Blair. This is good and long let it be so.

The first hint of substantial change came with the speech in Washington DC by the international development secretary, Douglas Alexander. One of Brown's closest allies in the Cabinet, Alexander is a loyal servant, routinely circumspect with his words and careful not to upset his master.

He told the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington that isolationism simply "does not work in an interdependent world", and that while a country's might was measured in the 20th century by what it could destroy, we were now in a different time, when strength should be measured by "what we can build together". Alexander subsequently talked of new alliances based on common values which "reach out to the world".

The message was clear: Bush's US neocon fantasy of a New American century, based on liberal interventionism and pre-emption linked to the spread of US-style democracy, was dead in the water and the new British prime minister wanted Bush to know Britain would be doing business differently from now on. Congress has been telling the White House something similar for months, and Alexander's tone wouldn't have come as a shock. In fact, it would have been interpreted as a show of solidarity by the Democrats and by some Republicans who have had enough of Bush's stance on Iraq and the Middle East.

Lord Malloch Brown's comments in a newspaper interview only added to the message Alexander was carrying in his diplomatic briefcase. The former United Nations deputy secretary-general - who is no fan of the Iraq war and the way the US sidelined the legal authority of UN with the blessing of Tony Blair - said he was not anti-American but was quite happy to be called anti-neocon, saying he would wear such a description as a "badge of honour".

This is a man who only weeks ago took the government whip, so he's unlikely to be willingly running the risk of losing his job. Saying Britain and the US will no longer be "joined at the hip" isn't a coded criticism, it's a statement of intent, a clear break from Blair. Brown has let these two lieutenants do some dirty work in advance of his forthcoming trip to Washington and his first encounter with Bush since he took over from Blair. Both Alexander and Malloch Brown have told the White House not to expect the same subservience, and although Downing Street tried to distance itself from the ministers' remarks, their rebuttal will have sounded shrill to Washington ears.

Number 10 said Brown would "work very closely with the American administration". Of course it will, because the US is the world's sole remaining superpower - not to work closely with it would be utter folly. But Blair did not simply work closely with Bush's administration, he looked and sounded as though he was part of it, playing a junior role to his senior masters around Bush, namely Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

That Brown will do things differently is part of the rehabilitation of British politics that is going on elsewhere as Brown attempts to win Labour a fourth straight term in Downing Street.

But clearly Britain's new prime minister doesn't want to leave Washington too miffed at the suggestion he might not quite be tugging his forelock when he enters the Oval Office. And so enter the young foreign secretary, David Miliband, and his message in a tabloid Sunday newspaper that the US-UK transatlantic alliance is "not breaking up". Strange timing, as neither Alexander nor Malloch Brown had suggested it was in any such danger.

Miliband also wanted to reassure us that the US would remain our single most important partner in the world. Again, no-one had suggested anything else. That is a diplomatic and economic given: Miliband might have wanted to look like he was putting out a diplomatic fire, but there was no evidence of any flames.

Brown will go to Washington and America will already know he is not Blair Mark II. That is perhaps the best of all the developments Brown has unveiled since he took over the keys of Number 10. It may have come four years too late, but the applause should still be loud.