Beautiful spin

by Laurence Rowe — published Jan 12, 2007 04:12 PM

Sometimes a spin doctor is faced with the impossible. Weeks after government ministers extolled the fresh realism of the Iraq Study Group's report, Bush bins it and announces twenty thousand strong 'surge' of troops into the country. But in facing the impossible he may reach the sublime.

Such was the achievement of the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman yesterday when forced to reconcile the seemingly contradictory position of America's extra troops with Britain's plan to 'draw down' forces. The positions were not contradictory. There was, he said, an 'underlying symmetry in our approach'.