Blair disagree with Bush? Not in a hundred years. Not his style at all.

No there won't be any formal protests from the British government. That doesn't mean a great deal. After all, from a pragmatic point if view, what would be the point?

Thee are two related but logically distinct questions involved. One is whether the people concerned, more especially those who are Taliban rather than Al Qaida, are in fact entitled to POW status. The other is whether they are being treated humanely and appropriately. The connection betweeen the two questions is that POW status is a floor below which conditions should not fall for any prisoner.

The former question is a technical one, and it is one where there are, in the views of many people round the world, very real grounds for thinking that the US government have got it wrong. And that evidently includes Secretary of State Colin Powell.