It was meant to put Britain’s relationship with the United States back on an even keel. Instead, Prime Minister David Cameron’s first official trip to Washington this week managed to make Great Britain look more like Grovelling Britain.

The Prime Minister’s inner suck-up reared its head early on when he allowed four US Senators to hijack the agenda. Ahead of the trip, the Senators had pressed for a meeting to discuss their call for an investigation into the release of the Lockerbie bomber; a request Mr. Cameron’s office initially rebuffed by offering to have Britain’s ambassador to the US meet with them instead. Within hours of landing however, Mr. Cameron flip-flopped and agreed to sit down with the gang.

The point here is not whether the issue was worth discussing but rather who was worthy of raising it with our Prime Minister. I bet Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t have rearranged her schedule to kowtow a bunch of lower ranking American statesmen riding a wave of British bashing ahead of a mid-term election.

The chummy joint press conference between the Prime Minister and President Obama tried to gloss over any disparities between the two leaders. But the pretence of equality was soon dashed by none other than the Prime Minister himself when he gave his view of US-British relations to an American television presenter. ‘We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting against Hitler. We are the junior partner now.’ The United States didn’t enter the war until 1941. But Mr. Cameron did more than embarrass the history departments of Eton and Oxford. He belittled what was arguably Britain’s finest hour and betrayed the public trust by demeaning the nation before a foreign audience.

The Barack and Dave Show

I’m not arguing that Britain can match the US in economic size or military strength. As I’ve said before, we’re not a superpower. But that doesn’t mean our Prime Minister should tell America we’re inferior to them. Given the sacrifice of British blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Cameron’s words are all the more offensive. If we’re so ‘junior’ let another, more ‘senior’ country stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Yanks and we’ll bring our troops home.

I had hoped that when the new coalition took power, Britain’s government would grow a backbone and start putting our national interest ahead of America’s. Sadly though, David Cameron has shown that when it comes to playing lapdog, he’s no different than his labour predecessors.

Bob Shepherd is an ex-SAS soldier and bestselling author of The Circuit. His debut novel The Infidel will be published August 5th by Simon & Schuster UK. To read more posts by him, please visit www.bobshepherdauthor.com.

President Obama just signed Congress’s health care bill into law. But will it really solve the country’s medical woes? Health care advisor Nathan Kaufman tells us that creating a viable system – you know, one that won’t bancrupt the country – will be a very long and involved process. And signing the bill is only the first step.

New York is facing a 3 billion dollar budget deficit, second only to California. But in the middle of the legislative session at the end of November, longtime Brooklyn assemblyman Dov Hikind led a group of American Jews to Israel to check out real estate in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We headed up to Assemblyman Hikind’s district of Borough Park to find out how the trip went – and his favorite Christmas song.

Despite calls from the Obama administration and other members of the international community, Israeli settlers continue to occupy parts of the West Bank, in violation of the Geneva Convention and Israeli law. For the Palestinians, this means continual harassment, pressure, and intimidation as settlers attempt to force them from their homes. And the ongoing power struggle within the Palestinian government isn’t helping things, either.

To the apparent consternation of the Israeli government, the issue of the settlements has been brought front and center, and it’s not something that will be settled soon, nor easily. Episode 4 of “Political Graffiti” examines the problem from the ground level.

We’ve been listening to the candidates tell us what they what they promise to do. At the end of the long campaign season we tracked down someone to tell us what they HAVE to do.

We’ve been listening to the candidates tell us what they what they promise to do.  We tracked down someone to tell us what they HAVE to do.

Three years after our first trip to Afghanistan the country is spinning out of control. What are the candidates going to do to stabilize the region after seven years?

So who is going to work with us to keep Afghanistan from sliding into chaos?  And who should we be talking to?

McCain and Obama say they will fix the economy so we’ll all be able to afford energy as it gets pricier.

But what are they doing to make sure there will be any left for us to buy?

McCain and Obama say they will fix the economy so we’ll all be able to afford energy as it gets pricier.

But what are they doing to make sure there will be any left for us to buy?