A BLAIR/CHIRAC SPLIT WIDENS:

Tony Blair has issued a direct challenge to France’s Jacques Chirac over the future of the transatlantic relationship by warning that the French president’s vision of Europe as a rival to the US is dangerously destabilising. . . .

Meanwhile a new MORI poll for the FT reveals that 55 per cent of Britons regard France as the UK’s least reliable ally, while 73 per cent view the US as the country’s most reliable.

Blair would like to heal the breach, but with Chirac’s ambitions — and, now, obvious efforts on behalf of a military enemy — it’s hard to see how that can happen.