Flap, flap, flap

It's the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Text of a letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair, objecting to his government's foreign policy moves. Bush faced similar criticism from diplomatic circles some months ago but it was more low-key, largely ignored by the press, and not taken very seriously by American pundits. They do take this sort of thing seriously here, though, despite the government's attempts to pin it all on "understandable frustration".